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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Dreamworks Video
Salesrank: 857
Released: November 2, 1999 |
| Our Price: $7.97 |
| Used Price: $2.29 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A SMALL BAND OF U.S. SOLDIERS ARE SENT ON A MISSION DURING THE TUMULTUOUS BATTLE AT NORMANDY TO FIND THE LONE SURVIVOR OF FOUR BROTHERS IN STEVEN SPIELBERG'S BRUTALLY HONEST, WORLD WAR II EPIC. SPECIAL FEATURES: CAST AND FILMMAKERS' BIOS: PRODUCTION NOTES: INTERACTIVE MENUS: TWO THEATRICAL TRAILERS AND MORE.
Description of Saving Private Ryan (Special Limited Edition):
When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.
A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance.
The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas
Saving Private Ryan (Special Limited Edition) Reviews:
?BALANCED? 
2009-12-20 - Never mind the improbability of the movie's premise.
--->Note the fact that only American troops are depicted committing war crimes and atrocities.<---
The singular moral-compass of the film is shot dead. One good American?
What was the message? The motivation other than money (mission accomplished) and entertainment (DOA, once off the beach)? Thus, the agenda?
5 stars 
2009-12-15 - If Saving Private Ryan isn't a 5 star movie, what is?
It's the best war movie of all time.
EXCELLENT!!!
2009-12-12 - EXCELLENT!
Very moving... true situation...Will make you cry, get angry, cry then see a "light at the end of the tunnel"! Cannot say enough good things about it! Buy and enjoy!
waaaaaaaaaaiting for blu-ray
2009-11-26 - The best war film ... but why ... there is no blu-ray yet ... I have been waiting for years!!!
More "Reel-istic" than Realistic 
2009-11-24 - Effective graphic art draws us in, appealing to the imagination, inviting us to participate in a viewing event. Whatever the eye of the artist has envisioned,
the eye of the beholder brings to practical focus. The work has to communicate sufficiently for us to relate to it. Similarly, video portraits lose audiences
when they leave little to the imagination. Viewers are left with nothing to do
but sit there, virtually motionless, in contrast to the multiplicity of actions that flow mercilessly across the screen.
For people who have never experienced the organized chaos of war, that may come across as a credible representation of reality. It isn't. True to life images
of military experience are impossible to recreate artificially, or as artifice.
We know the elemental components in sea water, but the exact formula for making
it in the laboratory escapes us. The result may taste right to us, but nothing
that actually originated in the sea comes to life in it. Marine creatures know
the difference, in a sense that we can only imagine.
Leaving little to our imagination, simulated combat in "Saving Private Ryan" is testament to Steven Spielberg's. Fertile as the prairie, it flows effortlessly into everything he does. Unquestionably, there is no director more earnest and hardworking. His enthusiasm is positively infectious.
As an actor, I would like to work with him, since his appreciation of the craft appears to match his passion for all aspects of production. As someone remarks
in the retrospective on making "Saving Private Ryan" that accompanies the D-Day edition, Spielberg "knows what he wants." In the broad sense, he has a vision,
and a basic plan. A formula. Usually, it works. Sometimes, it doesn't.
More telling, here, he has a positive mania for detail and storytelling, with a result that these elements sometimes combine, abruptly, forming manic images on
the screen. In one scene on the beach, Captain Miller turns his head to resume
contact with a radio operator, only to find that the man's face has been turned into bloody pulp. His first thought, however, is to check the radio. From the many veterans that I have interviewed over the years of researching the landing
at Normandy, even the most grizzled and combat-weary man would recoil from such
a sight, stunned into temporary immobility, faced with yet one more reminder of
his own vulnerability. The obliterated face is shown so briefly, if you blink,
you'll miss it.
The dizzying succession of images is a distraction. If Spielberg expects me to
think about what I'm watching, I need time for that. If his intent is to cause
me to feel as disoriented as the soldiers, I think he's succeeded. Frankly, it looks like he's tried to accomodate too much material. Ideas stampede, crowded beach, crowded brain.
To say that the storyline is carried forward too quickly more than once in this film is an understatement. In the space of mere seconds, Ranger Miller reveals
that he has command, not only of his faculties, but of the landing, shouting an order to inform the Fleet: "We don't hold the beach!"
I know that this scene is to show that individual men exercised initiative, but
the compression of time takes the script over the top.
Andy Rooney notes in MY WAR that, for the men on the beach in the initial hours
of D-Day, the boundaries of their world were measured in scant yards to left or right. They saw little beyond that. Smoke covered the area. Remarkable, what Miller and his sergeant managed to see of the enemy, using their small mirrors, servicing successful battle plans.
In standard war films, chief protagonists are usually outfront, doing important things. A clear hint that we should continue to watch them closely. While the theatrics in this film stray from cliche, for the most part, there are hints of
the 1990s. Movies, even thoughtfully crafted ones, are products of their time,
and this one is no exception. It's mostly about personal relationships.
I concur with General Colin Powell's perspective on the command decisions taken, leading up to the climactic battle. The Army has never been a democracy. In an actual situation, everyone was accountable, and acted accordingly.
Jim O'Dell
Military Historian
Buellton, CA
