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Saving Private Ryan (1998)
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Reviews Counted:91
Fresh:82
Rotten:9
Average Rating:8.1/10
Consensus: Anchored by another winning performance from Hanks, Spielberg's unflinchingly realistic war film virtually redefines the genre.
Runtime: 2 hrs 49 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Director Steven Spielberg's World War II tour de force chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), the unit is under... Director Steven Spielberg's World War II tour de force chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), the unit is under orders to track down a soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon), so he might return home to his mother in America, where she is grieving the unimaginable loss of her three other sons to the war. The first unforgettable 20 minutes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN realistically and horrifically depicts the Normandy invasion as Miller. his second-in-command, Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore), and the others in the unit land at Omaha Beach. Before the film began shooting, Hanks and the actors in his squad went through a one-week boot camp in the woods. All the actors, except Hanks, wanted to quit, but Hanks rallied their spirits by reminding them of the incredible tribulations endured by the real veterans of World War II. Production designer Tom Sanders found a beach in Ireland that perfectly matched the landscape of Normandy's. Spielberg gave great credit to the Irish army who helped re-create the Omaha Beach scenes. [More]
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Jeremy Davies, Edward Burns
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Jeremy Davies, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Giovanni Ribisi, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Ted Danson, Paul Giamatti, Dennis Farina, Harve Presnell, Bryan Cranston
Director: Steven Spielberg
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriter: Robert Rodat
Producer: Steven Spielberg, Ian Bryce, Mark Gordon, Gary Levinsohn
Composer: John Williams
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Reviews for Saving Private Ryan
Spielberg has taken us back to basics -- back to art, back to amazement at the film medium itself.
Spielberg throws you right down there in the middle of all the action, and you have no choice but to experience it.
Spielberg trades in his usually powerful ideals for an unsettling combination of phony humanism and pandering realism.
Violent, harrowing, and horrific; you bet. This is not a movie to take your children to see, or even a date. And it's definitely not worth seeing alone. How the ratings board gave this movie an "R" rating is a mystery. Well, maybe not.
Why did Spielberg make it? He wants us to imagine we can feel the terror of being there, but does that make us any wiser about this or any other conflict? Probably not.
If you enjoy war movies then you'll find this a 5/5 flick; I don't, so go figure.
For all the care and thoughtfulness that follow in the story, I never could shake the impression that all I was watching was every other war film Spielberg had ever seen.
The only thing surprising about Saving Private Ryan is how conventional it is. I fully expected a much more 'noir' vision of WWII along the lines of Oliver Stone's Platoon.
It's forty minutes of steely violence and two hours of cliche-ridden flab.
Except for the maudlin bookends from the present day that frame the story, Spielberg doesn't over-sentimentalize.
El desembarco en Normandía es un evento famoso de la Historia, pero nunca había sido fotografiado en esta forma.
This is an important film that deconstructs war machines into separate, frightened men as it so likely was.
The diverse effects that war has on human nature has never been captured with such aching reality.
Spectacular, wrenching masterpiece that unflinchingly documents the random horror, the grisly spectacle and the ugliness of war.
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