Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Saving Private Ryan'

WRITTEN BY JOHN EDWARD BETANCOURT

​Whether we like to admit it or not, war is something that completely captivates and fascinates mankind. We pour over the reasons as to why a war began in the first place and analyze the fallout of it when the fighting ends, and despite our best effort to understand it and prevent it, war continues, as does our fascination with it, especially in popular media.

Countless books have been written about war, and a myriad of films to go with it, each of them asking various questions about the human element and experience when it comes to conflict. Because when all is said and done, few of us truly understand war, since so many of us either learn about past conflicts in school or on our own time or we observe current conflicts through the comfort of social media or television. Which means the war films that find a way to connect with us, and draw us into the thick of it, hold a special place in cinematic history, and our hearts, as was the case with Saving Private Ryan.

Released in 1998, this is a film that instantly became a modern classic thanks to its frank portrayal of the Second World War. The plot, we all know, so there is no need to discuss that in any detail. Instead, it's more important we look at the thematic concepts the film worked hard to bring to light that few other war films had ever attempted before. One of them being that war is indeed hell. While this is a message that many films about the Vietnam War drove home, few films set in World War II have ever attempted to point out this particular fact. Take for example The Longest Day, another film where D-Day is central to the plot. While it is a grand and sweeping opus about a battle that certainly turned the tide, it is filled with Americana and unparalleled bravado revolving around the wonder of the Allied War Machine.

But Saving Private Ryan was not content to gloss over the horrors of war and in a matter of minutes we are plunged into a bloody and frightening conflict where men die in horrible and quick fashion. Those opening twenty minutes of the film set the tone for the rest of the story; where death lurks around every single corner and these poor men, while heroic in their own right and while driven by a greater cause for a greater good, are scared every step of the way and never quite allowed to process the nightmare unfolding around them or that their own end can arrive in a matter of minutes. It gives the film an incredible weight that other films certainly tried to replicate after it, but never quite succeeded in doing so. 

Yet, for all the darkness and hopelessness the film offers, there is indeed a hopeful message embedded within it, specifically that life is precious. That may seem silly after watching men die in brutal and swift fashion as bullets fly to settle an incredible conflict; but the sheer act of saving Private Ryan, of risking other men to keep a bloodline alive and ensure that the life of one man is preserved, makes this story incredibly unique and oddly enough, beautiful in its own right. Either way, this is a film that offers no easy answers on what mankind should do when it comes to war, it simply reminds us that life is precious and that it matters and that sometimes, risking our all to do the right thing could in fact, make the world a better place.  

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