SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (R) Steven Spielberg's World War II epic is a movie of staggering virtuosity and raw lyric power, a masterpiece of terror, chaos, blood, and courage. It opens with one of the most brutal and revolutionary sequences ever filmed, as Spielberg uses the D-Day invasion to put us directly inside the consciousness of men in combat. Tom Hanks, in a beautiful performance, is Captain Miller, who leads his platoon across the Normandy countryside in search of Private Ryan (Matt Damon), the only one of four enlisted brothers who may still be alive. The dread and violence of that opening massacre haunt their every move; at the same time, Spielberg is too great a filmmaker not to make the battles thrilling in their spontaneous logistical frenzy. Saving Private Ryan says that only by confronting the pitiless horror of World War II can we truly know its heroism. A

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