Saving Private Ryan

A review by

Patrick Dunning Bdunn2@ix.netcom.com

Keep in mind while you reed this, I am 15. On Saturday, July the 25th, my dad and I went to see Saving Private Ryan. I must say that the movie was a great movie, and will be remembered as one of the greats.

As every one says, it was realistic, hauntingly realistic. I’ve seen many war films including Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Patton, but none were as real as this. The story centers around eight solders (led by Tom Hanks) sent to find Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) because all three of his brothers died on D-day, and that got him a ticket home to his mom. The story opens on Omaha Beach on D-day: this has got to be the bloodiest scene in cinematic history. The big explosions, bloody scenes that usually happen center screen in most war movies is taking place everywhere in the background here. With the camera work, it was jerky, chaotic, random, blurry at times, really summing up how chaotic war is. This one scene affected me so much I couldn’t sleep that night. No movie, no horror, no war movie, no huge budget Sci-Fi extravaganza, has ever made me lose sleep. This wasn’t about glory, like the old WWII movies tried to portray. This wasn’t about generals, or the President: this was, when it comes down to it, about solders, the nameless ones that the higher-ups send to their deaths.

I’m a kid. I’ve had the facts thrown at me in school, I’ve heard what my Grandpas would tell me about the war, I’ve listened to historians talk about it on TV, but I never had a clue, I wasn’t even close, till I saw this movie. I have got to say this movie, Saving Private Ryan, has got to be, by far the best movie I have ever seen, four stars, two thumbs up and all that, but I never want to see it again. You won’t understand that until you see it.


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Copyright © 1998 Patrick Dunning

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