Steven Spielberg makes a unique motion picture in regards to the D-Day invasion of World War II just in the gritty reality of the detail
For more than twenty minutes he revives for us the landing at Omaha beach
No one was prepared for how horrific it really was
No one understood what was going on: The terror, the chaos, the maelstrom of bullets, the near-deafening explosions
You really got a sense of what these guys had to go through
Within that perplexity, the focus settles on six soldiers under the command of Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) after they've survived their terrible hours breaking through the first line of German defense, they're given a strange perilous mission, to find one man, Pvt. Ryan (Matt Damon), a paratrooper who's somewhere behind German lines
For them, it's an abstruse order, but they have to get it done
Throughout the film, Spielberg's attention to detail is amazing
For me, the most chilling scene in the movie is the death of an American officer
It's one of the most intimate
It's also a slightly confusing moment because two German characters resemble each other so greatly
Toward the middle, a German soldier called "Steamboat Willie" is introduced
By the end of the film, he has become the 'bad' German
Later in the movie, another German is involved in the final fight
He takes part in an exceedingly painful scene of hand-to-hand combat with the American soldier
The two German soldiers have similar short haircuts and black uniforms
Because they looked so much alike, many of us have believed that they're one character
They're not, and the distinction of the two is very significant
