Dir: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore
Synopsis: World War 2 epic following a group of American soldiers in France, from their landing at the ill-fated Omaha beach, to save a Ryan, a paratrooper who has lost all his brothers in the war.
Verdict: Saving Private Ryan is one of those films that, when you watch it, you can see it is a classic and fully deserving of the awards it picked up when it was released in '98.
Following Schindler's List and 13 years before War Horse, Spielberg builds on his fascination with the Second World War, which saw him produce two episodes in the brilliant series Band of Brothers - a program which follows real paratroopers' stories, featuring the accounts from the veterans themselves.
The action in the film is contrasted starkly with the deep emotional story, which starts from the off in the vast American war cemetery, building on this with extracts from the vast amounts of letters sent for soldiers killed in action and beyond.
These action sequences and moving scenes are broken up only rarely with some dark humour, but this does little to alleviate the overall tone of the film. It isn't helped either by the fact that the action sequences will have happened. This makes the sequences horrible to watch, unlike in a lot of films nowadays.
Tom Hanks plays the primary role in this and does so brilliantly, as do the rest of the cast, even the extras who are there just to die on the beach are convincing and, at times, difficult to watch.
You will definitely come away from watching this film having been affected in some way by this moving story, and it is easy to see why this film came away with five Oscars, two BAFTAs, and 48 other awards.
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