War Story Still Has Impact

by Jason R. Hewlett

It would seem to be a futile effort reviewing a movie as praised as Steven Spielberg's monumental film "Saving Private Ryan" more than six months after it came out. Most people have seen it and it's up for almost every Oscar and over 150 critics have put it on their ten best lists. Heck, I'd already seen the movie twice before I stepped into the theater once more to watch it just this week. Why do a review? Think of this as more of a re-affirment of the greatness of last year's best movie. Three viewings with no loss of impact!

We all know the story by now: a group of soldiers survive the D-day landing only to end up being sent on a dubious mission...find the last surviving brother of four who is lost somewhere in Normandy and get him to safety so he can return home. Not the most complex of plots to be sure but this is war here...this is life. The drama doesn't just come from the harrowing depiction's of war but also from the simple moral dilemma posed by many of the men in Tom Hank's band of warriors: why risk the lives of seven men to save just one man? What is the value of one man's life? It's a tough question to ask when you're simply a soldier following a chain of command.

To say that the performances, all of them, are uniformly excellent would be an understatement. I have to side with my fellow critics in begging the Academy to give Hanks an Oscar for this role despite the fact that he has got it two other times before for lesser performances. This is the performance of his career. Tough yet fair. Strong yet scared. It's beautiful to watch. Ditto the stunning cinematography and re-creation of war-torn Normandy. This isn't like watching a movie...it's like watching a documentary. Yes, some of it is hard to watch. The D-day invasion is some of the most brutal bits of film ever seen (I first saw the movie with my grandpa who was in D-day He assured me that it was just like the images on the film) but it's also important to see a film has harsh as this. In a generation where violence is so overly glorified in entertainment as ours its good that we are reminded that real violence and real war is a terrible thing. Everyone should see this movie!

Sure there's a bit of American propaganda and flag waving but I believe that if this were a Canadian movie we would do the same. This is pride in our elders who fought to save us from a fascist regime. I for one am thankful that they did. The two bookends with a grown up Ryan visiting the grave of Hanks could possibly have been dropped too. They're a bit redundant but why gripe. The story that they sandwich more than makes up for them.

10 out of 10...loadly!