SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

"Intense and powerful, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is an extraordinary achievement in film making, succinctly capturing emotions and colouring them in varying shades with a story about the horrors of war. The battle scenes are shocking, graphic and bloody, with a pulsating immediacy. I got the feeling that I was much too close for comfort, and this was not a situation anyone could possibly cope with sanely and rationally. In fact, much of the film is really tough to watch. It is very confronting and vivid in its realism, yet it is totally compelling. The investment of passion, pain and joy in being involved in the film is ultimately a hugely rewarding experience, and well worth the discomfort. The filmmaker’s tools at their best – from the cinematography, editing and sound, to John Williams’ superb music, which sweeps through scenes like the tide rolling to the shore. The script is beautifully structured, and lovingly nurtures our emotions by the development of the story and gradual revealing of the characters. Tom Hanks heads a superb cast, who each deliver memorable, superb performances. Hanks manages to get the balance of Captain Miller perfectly, with subtleties in the middle of the most unsubtle of environments. He is the epitome of decency – the sort of role Gregory Peck or Jimmy Stewart might have played. The way personal information about him is withheld for much of the film, adds greatly to the rhythms of characterisation. Saving Private Ryan is a film that lingers long after the credits have rolled. Its passion, brutality, honestly, integrity and zest for life are substantial ingredients in the churn of life. The film of the year."
Louise Keller

"The adage that war is hell befits the overall tone of this extraordinary masterpiece from Steven Spielberg. The gifted filmmaker's maturity and pure skill as a technician and artist are in evidence here. Private Ryan is a tough film, uncompromising in its graphic description of battle and human carnage. Yet it's a film that, through that realism, is true to itself, something rarely seen in mainstream Hollywood. Spielberg may well be master of the popcorn movie, but when he delivers a work of such obvious passion as this film, then the true genius of the director comes through. Saving Private Ryan is simply a film about war and sacrifice, and not so much about individualism. So while Tom Hanks is the 'star' of the film, this is a director's movie, a work of raw, immeasurable power that envelopes the viewer to feel and hear the horrors of war experienced by these characters. From a startling use of sound to sharp, handheld camera movements to enhance a stark sense of realism, Saving Private Ryan is cinema at its most stunning. Not that the performances aren't worth noting. Hanks gives a subtle, beautifully realised performance; Tom Sizemore excels as his friend and right-hand man; only Matt Damon in the pivotal central role doesn't quite ring true. With the exception of a closing, modern sequence (the film's most jarring flaw), Saving Private Ryan remains compelling, hypnotic cinema, and for Spielberg, a work of maturity and immeasurable power."
Paul Fischer

"The director’s new sophistication and notorious technical genius accomplish what previously seemed impossible--- a responsible anti-war film awash in brutal action sequences. Spielberg understands that the camera will glamorize whatever falls in its mechanical gaze. He goes around this by brilliantly filming with overexposed stock and quivery hand-held cameras, reminiscent of documentary footage. Drained of color and romanticism, writhing soldiers drag themselves across Omaha Beach, dodging rains of zinging rocket fire. Spielberg’s exceptional sound design, overlaps and subjective viewpoints thrust us inside fractured psyches---dipping underwater in a false sense of muted peace, plummeting up again into a raging inferno where human screams loose their individual sources, fused into a searing wall of discord. This near half-hour, excruciating battle sequence breaks new visual ground for Spielberg and war movies in general. The original script by Robert Rodat (doctored by Frank Darabont and Scott Frank) is fleshed by familiar faces—most prominently, Hanks, as Capt. Miller, the teacher turned captain who embodies the heroic effort. His sweet, self-effacing persona, renowned by American audiences, seems contrary in combat, like the neighborhood boy who never came home. Ironic juxtapositions abound, as in life."
Crissa-Jean Chappell, Miami Sun Post