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Julien H · U for Unclassified Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 13

The film, Saving Private Ryan, is about a squadron of soldier’s who are attempting to save a soldier from the airborne, Private James Francis Ryan from Iowa.

Promotional poster for the film.

In the film, the main soldiers in the film are:
Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks)
Technical Sergeant Michael Horvath (Tom Sizemore)
Private First Class Richard Reiben, BAR gunner (Edward Burns)
Private Daniel Jackson, a highly religious sharpshooter (Barry Pepper)
Private Stanley Mellish, a Jewish Rifleman (Adam Goldberg)
Private First Class Adrian Caparzo, rifleman (Vin Diesel)
Technician 4th Grade Irwin Wade, medic (Giovanni Ribisi)
Corporal Grade Timothy E. Upham, cartographer and interpreter (Jeremy Davies)
Private First Class James Francis Ryan, a Paratrooper (Matt Damon)

At different points in the film, the characters start to behave differently, such as John Miller after the charge of the radio station that is held by the Germans.

Tom Hanks as John H. Miller

In the battle situations, the actors move around in tactical formations as if they were real soldiers, but nothing can be said about the validity of the battles, as you would have to study each individual battle in world war two, and that would consume a large amount of time. What can be said though, is that the ways the actors run around in the battle situations is appalling, if that was real war half of them would have died with Vin Diesel.
And the orders given by john miller would have undoubtedly killed the soldiers at the Merderet River Bridge.

A group of soldiers assaulting a German tiger 1 tank

In my opinion, the film could have been better, if they had used authentic tactics, formations, battle plans, etc, and if the battle scenes had been longer, as the charge on the radio station roughly lasted for three and a half minutes, but the characters were well acted (with the exception of Matt Damon), and my favorite was probably the sharpshooter Daniel Jackson, who was acted by Barry Pepper, and my favorite moment of the film was the battle at the end.

All in all, I would give the film 8 out of 10, because it lacked authenticity in the battles and tactics, but I enjoyed every minute of it!