Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan certainly grabbed my attention. So much so that even when I was having audio issues, I kept watching for half an hour without sound. After the issue was addressed, I went back and watched it again. After having just seen the footage, I thought I’d probably want to fast forward. Now, audio is a large part of the movie, yes, but both times the movie held my attention, and the added experience of audio only made it more powerful. This was just the beginning.

Immediately, we are introduced to a battle that’s present the entire movie. It’s a fairly standard approach to war, making the viewers cheer for one side, while the other side, in a sense, is exaggerated to evil. Before the main plot driver is introduced, we are given a look at a team that we grow to love throughout the movie.

Another morally conflicting theme is brought to the team when they are sent to deliver news to a Private Ryan that all of his brothers are dead, and it is time for him to return home. Many members of the team that we as audience members love do not make it to see the Private’s face. It is a brutal path to Ryan, and while the war can bring out the best in people, it also brings out the worst. It creates an interesting ideology to see how different characters react differently under pressure. Some people are driven to a near insanity. They stray to lengths of betrayal once violence is all they know. Uppam is a very interesting character we are introduced to. His highlight of his character is his rationality, and he helps save the team, but his rationality clouds his vision of war and the death surrounding him, and indirectly lets his fellow men die. At the end, we see him overcome the barrier his rationality brought him, without losing his personality and ability to look at things from a clear perspective.

Ryan’s character is being developed from the start. Under the same idea of man vs. himself, Ryan fights for the men around him that he loves, but is introduced to a major dilemma. He does not want to leave the side of his fellow teammates who are given the duty of protecting one of the two remaining bridges, but then realizes that not only his brothers died, but men died searching for Ryan himself. It is a lot to process, but Ryan ultimately chooses to stay despite the risks. When we realize that Ryan is shown at the beginning and end in old age, we see that he carries the deaths of Captain Miller and his team upon his shoulders while returning home to a family that has already been broken beyond repair.

The emotional aspects of Saving Private Ryan add an entirely new element to a story that portrays war in its most chaotic element. It is a film that takes away the characters we have grown attached to, while relating it to the people who have truly lost loved ones at the hands of war. A character that we could hold responsible for the death of characters that we held dear becomes the remaining element of the love that was developed in our hearts from the beginning of the story. It was truly brilliant. I am giving this a well deserved 4.5/5 congressional medals of honor.