Shortly after the D-Day invasion in northern France a group of U.S. Rangers are assigned to locate a missing paratrooper who is the last of four brothers.
Saving Private Ryan is the graphic and highly emotional tale about a group of U.S. soldiers assigned to go behind enemy lines in France in World War II to find a missing paratrooper, Pte. James Ryan (Matt Damon).
Leading the group is Capt. John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) who has seen combat in other parts of Europe, and he also knows that searching for one man deep in enemy territory could prove fatal for his entire squad. Sure enough, his team are picked off one by one.
Beginning in the present, an elderly veteran with his family in tow weeps in a cemetery with identical tombstones. The nameless soldier's memory then goes back more than fifty years to the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach. The cinematography in this scene is frighteningly realistic and the American troops are being mercilessly cut to pieces by German machine gun fire. It seems hopeless for the young and visibly terrified U.S. forces, but amid all the chaos Capt. Miller, his second in command Sgt. Mike Horvath (Tom Sizemore) and the rest of his team survive the terrible battle and move inland to regroup.
Not long after it is discovered by senior military officers that Pte. James Ryan is the last of four brothers and it is at this point that Capt. Miller receives new orders - search and rescue. The newest edition to Miller's group is Cpl. Timothy Upham, (Jeremy Davies) an intelligence officer who has never seen combat, and therefore is not warmly welcomed into the squad. Now the real test begins, one of courage and the will to survive as each of the soldiers, the New Yorker, the Jew, the Southerner and Capt. Miller tread wearily across the French countryside risking their lives to find a soldier, who, as far as they are concerned might already be dead.
Issues surrounding military codes of conduct are explored in the film when the squad is divided on whether they should execute a German soldier for killing the U.S. medical officer Irwin Wade (Giovanni Ribisi). The situation is highly volatile and almost results in the Americans shooting each other, but Capt. Miller calmly intervenes and reminds them all that their mission is to find Pte. Ryan and go home, not to succumb to further violence.
Pte. Ryan is finally located but stubbornly refuses to abandon his post, much to the dismay of Capt. Miller and the others. The soldiers reminisce about people and events back in the States and for a few precious moments, the decimated town they are sitting in the middle of is peaceful and the war seems far away. The final battle which now involves Pte. Ryan is by far the most gut wrenching, even more so than the initial carnage of the Normandy landings. Capt. Miller meets his fate at the strategic bridge that is the last line of defense against the German infantry. Pte. Ryan survives and returns to the U.S., and now it is clear that many years later it's him that is standing in the cemetery. He locates Capt. Miller's final resting place and says what he wanted to say so many years earlier, thank you for saving me.
More than six decades have passed since Allied troops landed on the Normandy beaches, and the film does a superb job of recreating those events. More reviews of this movie and information about the actors can be found at IMDB. For more history about this pivotal day in the Second World War, go to britannica/dday and thehistorychannel.
