Tom Hanks is Captain John H. Miller, in Saving Private Ryan he survives the D-Day landings and together with his company he is ordered to go on a mission to locate a young soldier by the name of James Francis Ryan, Ryan's three brothers have all died during the conflict and military chiefs decide it would be good for morale if they can locate Private Ryan and send him home safely to his mother.

The plotline is taken from events that happened during the American Civil War, during that war a Mrs Bixby had lost her sons and Abraham Lincoln had written a letter to her, it turns out Mrs Bixby lied about the sons she had lost, only two out of five died and she was also a Confederate sympathiser, it's believed Lincoln didn't write the letter but that one of his advisers did.

Steven Spielberg directs Saving Private Ryan.

Many of the cast were not huge names when this film was made but you will recognize the likes of Vin Diesel, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Giovanni Ribisi and Paul Giamatti.

I noticed Nathan Fillion in the movie and many will know him from the tv shows Firefly and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Jeremy Davies is also in the cast, he played Daniel Faraday in Lost, he is instantly recognizable if you watch that show, he has also appeared in many movies.

It was interesting to see Ted Danson in this film, his cameo is memorable and Ted is a good actor and he shows it in this film, indeed before the tv show Cheers, Ted gave good acting performances in movies such as The Onion Field and Body Heat.

Hanks gives one of his finest acting performances in this film, he really was at the top of his game when this film was made and when you look at his eighties movies and then watch the films he made in the nineties you can see his maturity and development as an actor.

Spielberg does not shy away from showing the cruelty of war and the opening D-Day landing scenes are explicit and gory, bodies are ripped in half, limbs are lost and the blood flows, the audience is as shellshocked as the characters during these opening scenes.

The final act of the film is tense and has a great build up, it's a testament to how skillful Spielberg is as a director that he can put you right into the middle of a war where the action flows thick and fast but still find time for quieter reflective moments that make you care about the characters, other film makers should take note because too many forget about quality dialogue and well rounded characters and instead they concentrate on action, action, action, so much so that they forget to give us people we can root and care for. The best film makers give us it all and Spielberg was brought up in an era where well written characters were the norm unlike todays MTV generation directors that think fast cutting will hide the deficiencies in their script.

Image quality on this disc is superb, Spielberg has deliberately went for a certain look to the production and this means film grain is prominent and intentional, there is also some dirt and specks that show up and once again this is intentional and appropriate to the production, the colour was drained by about 60% from the film print to create a less saturated look, black levels are perfect for this release and fleshtones look accurate. During World War II there was film cameramen shooting the war and they would mainly use 35mm camera's, i believe Spielberg is trying to recreate that look during the opening intensely realistic frenzied battle scenes.

If you check out frames 7,8 and 9 below you can see deliberate photographic choices made for the movie, thats all intentional and not an issue with the disc.

The sound mix is impressive, watch the beach attack and listen to how good the soundstage is, rear speakers get a massive workout with lots of split surround activity, the bass is very deep and there is a lot of channel panning, speech is clear unless deliberately drowned out for some of the battle sequences. This is one hell of sound mix and one of the best i have heard.

Great movie although its not in my top three of Spielberg movies, that would belong to Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Jaws and Jurassic Park.

View blu ray screencaps of Saving Private Ryan below. Double click for the full HD image.