Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3768 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-01-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 162 minutes

Synopsis
Director Steven Spielberg's World War II tour de force chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), the unit is under orders to track down a soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon), so he might return home to his mother in America, where she is grieving the unimaginable loss of her three other sons to the war. The first unforgettable 20 minutes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN realistically and horrifically depicts the Normandy invasion as Miller. his second-in-command, Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore), and the others in the unit land at Omaha Beach. Before the film began shooting, Hanks and the actors in his squad went through a one-week boot camp in the woods. All the actors, except Hanks, wanted to quit, but Hanks rallied their spirits by reminding them of the incredible tribulations endured by the real veterans of World War II. Production designer Tom Sanders found a beach in Ireland that perfectly matched the landscape of Normandy's. Spielberg gave great credit to the Irish army who helped re-create the Omaha Beach scenes.

Customer Reviews

Honest, shocking depiction of war
I went to see this in the cinema when it first came out. My friends and I were speechless when we came out, this film is harrowing. The story is simple and the characters may be a little cliched but its hardly the point, what counts here is the depiction of war at its most brutally honest. In this film Spielberg proved his genius to me, rising above the silliness and indulgent sentimentality of most of his work.

There is some sentimentality in this, but as someone who was moved to tears when visiting the war graves at Omaha Beach I do not find it inappropriate. I wondered about the people whose memorials I saw and this film gives a graphic, shocking account of how they died. Veterans have said that in watching the first scenes of this film they were taken back to what they hadn't allowed themselves to remember. Spielberg did his homework well and the grainy, slightly overexposed look to this film adds authenticity.

We are all survivors of war but we do not understand it unless we have direct experience. As a man who would probably been a soldier during WW2 I look at this and wonder how I would have managed, what I would have done. These are questions we should all ask ourselves if we allow our countries to indulge in warfare and this film is starkly honest in its depiction of what is meant by heroism, sacrifice and the altered reality that is war.

features
Special Features



* Introduction from director Steven Spielberg
* 'Looking Into The Past': Steven Spielberg explains the research, the screenplay and his intentions
* 'Miller And His Platoon': Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and the cast introduce the characters they played
* 'Boot Camp': memories from the participants about the intense boot camp under the supervision of military advisor Dale Dye
* 'Making Saving Private Ryan': a look at the production, costumes and photography
* 'Recreating Omaha Beach': how the famous opening battle was constructed
* 'Music And Sound': information from the Oscar-winning team who scored the film
* 'Parting Words': Spielberg and Hanks conclude on their respective experiences
* Interactive menu
* Scene access

Saving Private Ryan - 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition
This is 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition 2 disc version comes in a keepcase.

Video;
1.78:1 - Anamorphic

Audio;
English DTS 5.1
English Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles on disc 1; Arabic,Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English HoH, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish and Turkish

Subtitles on disc 2; Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English HoH, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.