Saving Private Ryan: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Someday we might look back on this and decide that [[Title Drop|saving Private Ryan]] was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole godawful, shitty mess.''''|'''Sgt. Horvath'''}}

 

 

The film's setting is [[World War II]], beginning with D-Day -- namely, Omaha Beach, where "hell's doors were open" and the Allied soldiers faced the first waves of Nazi resistance. There, Capt. Miller (Hanks) and his company slowly penetrate the German defenses leading to a breakout from the beach.

After going through many French cities and losing two men, Miller's unit finally finds Ryan -- but there's a problem: Ryan is with a small group of soldiers who have been ordered to protect a bridge from the Germans, and he steadfastly refuses to leave behind "the only brothers" he has left. Outnumbered and outgunned by advancing German forces, Miller and the rest of his squad put it all on the line for the survival of just one man.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Age Cut]]: The epilogue.

* [[All of Them]]: Subverted, as Captain Miller gives Private Ryan the bad news regarding his brothers.

{{quote|'''Captain Miller:''' Your brothers were killed in combat.

'''Captain Miller:''' All of them.}}

* [[Armor Is Useless]]: Averted but also played straight; a soldier's helmet is grazed by a bullet, he takes it off to see it... and gets a second bullet in the forehead. A field doctor fixes up a wounded man at D-Day, only for another bullet to go through the victim's helmet as he works, killing him. The aversion is the helmet that ''stops'' the bullet; regular-issue helmets were only designed to stop shrapnel and not bullets, which is why the soldier is so amazed.

** A subversion with Wades death. Before engaging the machine gun, they took off their only form of protection.

* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: {{spoiler|The Nazi machine-gunner who shot Wade and was released by the Americans returns later in the final battle}}. The last 15 minutes of the film could be characterized as going down with [[Chekhov's Armory|Chekhov's Guns]] blazing.

* [[Cherubic Choir]]: Heard in the soundtrack's main theme, Hymn to the Fallen.

** That was no ordinary soldier that Wade and the medics were trying to save. He was the battalion surgeon, which is why Wade was so pissed after managing to save his life.

* [[Cold Sniper]]: Jackson. Although it's worth noting that while he's emotionally cold when he's actually sniping, murmuring Bible verses to himself while calmly lining up his shots, when it comes to his interactions with the rest of the squad he's [[Friendly Sniper|one of the friendlier and more courteous soldiers in the team.]]

* [[Death Notification]]: A montage early on as Mrs. Ryan receives a series of death notices for [[Tear Jerker|all but one of her sons.]]

* [[Decoy Protagonist]]: We're led to believe that the man entering the cemetery in the present day is Captain Miller, and that the 95% of the film set in [[World War II]] is his flashback. Then {{spoiler|Miller dies in the final battle, and it's revealed that the man in the cemetery is actually Private Ryan, who has spent the whole movie recalling the story of how Miller saved his life}}.

* [[Distracted From Death]]: On the beach, Miller speaks to a radio man, turns away, goes to talk to the radio operator again and sees that the guy is dead. Also, {{spoiler|Sergeant Horvath dies like this too}}.

* [[Drugs Are Bad]]: Tom Sizemore (Sgt. Horvath) was battling drug addiction while filming the movie. Spielberg knew about this and had Sizemore tested for drugs every day during filming, with the condition that Sizemore would be fired and his character recast should he tested positive for drugs just once.

* [[Just Following Orders]]: "We're not here to do the "decent thing"! We're here to follow [[Precision F-Strike|fuckin']] orders!"

* [[Kill'Em All]]: Played straight without mercy.

* [[Knife Fight]]: Noted for being rather psychologically disturbing.

* [[Ludicrous Gibs]]: The entire film has many instances, including the famous D-Day scene, and the failed result of the aforementioned [[Improvised Weapon|Improvised Weapons]].

* [[Made of Plasticine]]: Although the carnage is realistic.

* [[Major Injury Underreaction]]: Played realistically, as a result of adrenaline and shock. Sgt. Horvath says "Just got the wind knocked out of me" after he's been shot several times, and a GI on Omaha Beach picks up his arm that was just severed at the shoulder by a mortar shell and walks away with it.

* [[Mercy Kill]]: Played straight with [[The Medic]], inverted with the burning Germans on D-Day ("Don't shoot! Let 'em burn!").

* [[Mexican Standoff]]: A group of American and German soldiers unexpectedly bump into each other in a bombed-out village, and each shouts, trying to tell the other side to surrender. {{spoiler|Ted Dansen shows up and blasts the Germans, ending the standoff}}.

* [[Needle in a Stack of Needles]]: Said after the Omaha Beach landing. What are the odds of finding one soldier in a huge army in the middle of a battle?

* [[New Meat]]: Upham never fought before Miller asked him to join the squad and hasn't handled a weapon since basic training.

* [[No One Gets Left Behind]]: A large aspect of the movie, which was based on a real event where a 101st soldier was called home after two of his brothers were killed and a third (a fighter pilot) was missing in the China-Burma-India theater of war.

* [[Obligatory War Crime Scene]]: A German is mentally tortured and nearly executed after his squad kills Wade (and after [[Ungrateful Bastard|he comes back to battle]], loses and surrenders, Upham shoots him). Also, surrendering Czechs are shot at Omaha (with [[One-Liner]]: "Look, I washed for supper!").

* [[Obstacle Exposition]]: The planning of the [[Last Stand]] up to the blowing up of the bridge.

** Also an aversion of the [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]]: you hear all the plans the squad has for fighting the battle of Ramelle, and the get to watch them carry it out.

* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted when they find the first Ryan.

* [[The Oner]]: Some long takes help the battles get more engaging.

{{quote|'''Soldier:''' Sir, what's the rallying point?

'''Miller:''' Anywhere but here!}}

* [[Scope Snipe]]: Jackson nails a German sniper clean through his scope.

* [[The Scourge of God]]: Jackson apparently thinks himself this. Of course a sniper's job is the sort to make people seem a wee bit odd, anyway.

* [[Shell-Shock Silence]]: Happens twice, and is a possible [[Trope Codifier]].

* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: It's implied that Captain Miller is this from the way that his hand shakes uncontrollably when he's either anticipating the stress of upcoming combat, or concerned about his mission.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: The film did a very accurate recreation of the D-Day landings with many veterans praising the realistic portrayal of the action.

* [[The Siege]]: Holding the bridge.

* [[The Squad]]: Played with. The camera lingers briefly on a few of the many soldiers in Captain Miller's landing craft, implying that they are going to be [[The Squad]] for the rest of the movie, but most of those men get killed in the first fifteen seconds after the shooting starts, giving a clear indication that [[Darker and Edgier|this is not going to be your father's war movie.]] You meet the members of the ''real'' squad one at a time during the beach battle, but they don't become [[The Squad]] until after.

* [[Sticky Bomb]]

* [[Tanks, But No Tanks]]: Mostly averted; the Tiger and Marder mock-ups are actually quite good, although what the Marders -- self-propelled anti-tank guns -- were doing taking on a small infantry unit in an urban environment was simply the Germans just using whatever they had to hand. If you know where to look, it's quite easy to tell that the "Tigers" are dressed-up T-34s. The sniper confusingly refers to the Marders as "Panzer tanks, two of 'em" but that's actually [[Truth in Television]]: to your average GI ''all'' AFVs were tanks and all German tanks were panzers; the only identification they really cared about was shoot/don't shoot. American soldiers had never encountered the Marder before Normandy.

* [[Tempting Fate]]: Sniping Nazis is great and everything, but doing it in such an overconfident way that {{spoiler|a German tank figures out where you're shooting from}} is bad news.

* [[Suspiciously Small Army]]: The film was lauded for having the D-Day beach look like it was crowded.

* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: The German soldiers that we see act more or less the same way the Americans do -- some of them are just as frightened and freaked out about the war as some of the Allied soldiers.

* [[Translation Convention]]

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Academy Award]]

[[Category:Epic Movie]]

[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]

[[Category:Saving Private Ryan]]

[[Category:Film]]