Saving Private Ryan

Steven Spielberg directed this powerful, realistic re-creation of WWII's D-day invasion and the immediate aftermath. The story opens with a prologue in which a veteran brings his family to the American cemetery at Normandy, and a flashback then joins Capt. John Miller ( Tom Hanks ) and GIs in a landing craft making the June 6, 1944, approach to Omaha Beach to face devastating German artillery fire. This mass slaughter of American soldiers is depicted in a compelling, unforgettable 24-minute sequence. Miller's men slowly move forward to finally take a concrete pillbox. On the beach littered with bodies is one with the name "Ryan" stenciled on his backpack. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall ( Harve Presnell ), learning that three Ryan brothers from the same family have all been killed in a single week, requests that the surviving brother, Pvt. James Ryan ( Matt Damon ), be located and brought back to the United States. Capt. Miller gets the assignment, and he chooses a translator, Cpl. Upham ( Jeremy Davis ), skilled in language but not in combat, to join his squad of right-hand man Sgt. Horvath ( Tom Sizemore ), plus privates Mellish ( Adam Goldberg ), Medic Wade ( Giovanni Ribisi ), cynical Reiben ( Edward Burns ) from Brooklyn, Italian-American Caparzo ( Vin Diesel ), and religious Southerner Jackson ( Barry Pepper ), an ace sharpshooter who calls on the Lord while taking aim. Having previously experienced action in Italy and North Africa, the close-knit squad sets out through areas still thick with Nazis. After they lose one man in a skirmish at a bombed village, some in the group begin to question the logic of losing more lives to save a single soldier. The film's historical consultant is Stephen E. Ambrose , and the incident is based on a true occurance in Ambrose's 1994 bestseller D-Day: June 6, 1944 . — Bhob Stewart