Saving Private Ryan is about an 8-man team that is formed specifically for the mission of locating the MIA Private James Francis Ryan. Once they find him, if he is alive, they are to inform him that his three older brothers have died in combat and that he is to return home to America (Iowa, to be exact).
The movie starts out with an elderly James Ryan leading his family into a massive WW2-veteran-only cemetery, with perfectly equal spacing between each white cross or Star of David (for Jewish American soldiers), so that no matter what angle you were looking from, they made perfectly straight lines. That didn't have anything to do with anything, but it was something I noticed and thought was cool. Anyways, Ryan reaches a certain grave and falls to his knees, almost crying. From there, most of the movie is a flashback, but not from his perspective.
In the beginning, Captain John Miller leads a boat full of men onto Omaha Beach as part of the D-Day operation. As soon as the boat back opens to let the men out, bullets bombard them and most are already dead (scary), but somehow he and others are able to make is ashore, where more "most" of the men are shot and killed. Miller zones out for a bit as he takes in the destruction around him, then pulls himself together and takes charge of the situation after running to the sand ditch where others are taking cover. Eventually, he leads the troop that gets the machine gun's cliff-thing to fall and they invade the German bunks and thus take the beach.
Meanwhile, back in America, in an office building full of typewriters and women in charge of typing the "I regret to inform you..." notices of soldiers' deaths to their families, a worker realizes that three papers she typed are headed to the same address. She informs her boss, who informs his boss, who informs the army dudes, who have a meeting. In the meeting, they discuss how these three papers are for three brothers and are headed for the brothers' mother. But they have another brother, who went missing after a plane went down. So they decide to send out a troop to go and look for him, find out if he's dead or alive, and if he's alive, bring him back.
Since the German base is taken at Omaha Beach, Miller receives the mission and puts together his 8-man team. There is a sailor-mouth, a medic, another higher officer, a newbie, a sniper, etc. They set out and come across their first obstacle, a town besieged by Germans. The US soldiers there are split in half on two sides of the decimated town, and Miller has to help them take on the Germans so they can see if Ryan is on the other side. On the way, a family in a halved building asks them to take their children to safety. Miller says no, the newbie (who is on the mission because he can speak both French and German) tries to tell them so, but somebody takes the little girl her father pushes on him, and they try to give her back. Then the Germans find them and the other higher officer on the mission is shot. Miller tells the sniper to find the shooter, he does, kills him, etc. But in the time it took to get rid of the threat, the other higher officer dies. In any case, Miller and the troop help the situation, and find that Private Ryan is not there. There was a Ryan, but the wrong one, which they discovered after breaking the news that his brothers were dead...ha. Mistake. Poor guy. He was still panicking even after they told him they had the wrong guy. They spend the night in a church, discuss sentimentalities and stuff. Miller's hands shake.
Miller's troop moves on and find the plane that Private Ryan had been on, and it had been turned into a sort of camp. Lots of wounded, lots of people moving through, lots of tags to check (the pilot gives them a bag of dog-tags he's collected from the dead at the camp). Eventually they find a guy who knew Ryan, but he doesn't know where he is, he can only give them a general area.
The set out for said general area and are walking through a field of flowers....and a German car goes by, they hide, somebody else shoots at it and blows it up. They help shoot the guys inside, then find another guy who knows Ryan. He tells him he went with an officer recruiting to hold a bridge.
Miller's troop heads for the bridge. On the way, they come across a German bunker. They decide to attack it so it wont ambush the next troop to come along. They succeed, but one of their medic is shot and dies. They capture the sniper who got their medic, beat him up, and make him help them dig graves for the bodies at the bunker. Miller goes off on his own so his men won't see him cry. After arguments, they blindfold the guy and let him go. Sailor mouth tries to desert, causes a big fight. Miller stops it by telling stories about his life before the war (he was a teacher for eleven years, i think).
Finally, they reach the bombed-out town where Ryan and a small group of men running out of ammo are waiting on back-up. They are holding on of only two surviving bridges for something, so what they're doing is important. Miller breaks the news to Ryan and tells him its time to go home, but Ryan says no, my duty here isn't finished. So Miller and the troop (now down to 6) stay and help out. Miller is a pretty helpful guy, you see, helps the situation wherever he goes- introduces the sticky-bomb, too.
Another big battle scene. Newbie is too slow and cowardly, so sailor-mouth and another from Miller's troop are killed by Germans, one of which was the POW they had let go at the bunker. The POW sees Newbie, but ignores him (thus returning the favor, since Newbie had showed him kindness and argued for his life at the bunker). Miller's troop is down to 4. Sniper and another of Miller's troop, up in the bell-tower, get shot at by a tank. Down to 2- just Newbie and Miller, +Ryan.
Someone gives the signal to fall back to "the Alamo", since the Americans are far outnumbered by the advancing Germans. Miller gets ready to blow the bridge and stop the German advance (the last-resort strategy), while Newbie hides (he hasn't made it across the bridge, there are Germans everywhere). Miller get shot, goes into a daze, sees people die again, snaps out of it, gets shot again, shoots at a tank as he dies. Then the tank explodes - American reinforcements have arrived! They take out the Germans quickly. Newbie takes a stand against the Germans in front of him and kills the ex-POW for revenge. Miller dies. Ryan goes home.
And the movie ends back in the cemetery, with elderly Private Ryan talking to and thanking the grave of Captain John Miller.
So, reviews. I thought it was a really good movie. Sad, lots of language, and gory, and more sad, but...it kinda makes you see reality. Blood and guts, people die in wars. The water at Omaha Beach was red with blood, both from on the shore and on the seafloor. At the end of the movie, I just thought "I won't ever be able to understand that." Because I can't. Seven men died for James Ryan. He knew that and had to live with it, and hoped living was enough to thank those men who he could not ever repay.
Sorry, my summary is a bit long, detailed. I've never been good at summarizing.
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