“Someday we might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole God awful, shitty mess. Like you said, Captain, maybe we do that, we all earn the right to go home.”

The Second World War is considered the last Great War ever fought. When men truly fought against men. When heroes fought and died. But that’s a funny word isn’t it. Heroes. What truly was a hero back then? What is a hero now? What makes a hero a hero?

Steven Spielberg’s best film to date, Saving Private Ryan, is a triumph of the American spirit of heroism without being truly rightist. It examines the deep flaws in the idea of heroism but also shows that it existed. And it does it with the most gripping of worlds; Spielberg has truly recreated World War II in the most horrific way possible.

The story of Saving Private Ryan begins with the capture of Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944. In one of the greatest (and hardest to watch) action scenes ever created, Spielberg creates a truly haunting and chaotic world. The camera acts as if it was a soldier. It keeps spinning around like it has no idea what to do. Bullets fly by, and the sound effects feel actually real. Blood, water, and dirt cover the camera and the screen. Fear drives this scene. This is a truly frightening experience that has a technical merit like no other. But as the action winds down and the battle ends, the camera lingers over the body of one private Ryan.

Saving Private Ryan follows eight ordinary soldiers, led by their Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks), who are sent on a mission across France to rescue one ordinary soldier named Private James Ryan (Matt Damon). Ryan has just lost three of his brothers to the war, and the United States has decided that this could make for one good publicity stunt. But the chances Ryan is alive is slim and the danger is exceedingly high. For Miller’s crew (including Tom Sizemore, Ed Burns, and Barry Pepper), the mission is ironic. They all have families they would like to go home to. What really makes Private Ryan so special?

With no other choice, they march across France, fighting what ever Germans are in their way. They are looking out for themselves, more than the hopes of Private Ryan’s possibility of existence. But part of the irony is that they are not supposed to attack It’s when they come upon a radar instillation that they decide that instead of going around, it is their duty to destroy it. But it’s not even that. It’s not their duty. They just want to do what they came to Europe to do: to fight back.

Part of what makes Saving Private Ryan is its characters. Each member of Miller’s crew is more ordinary than the next. None of these people have comic twitches or elaborate back-stories. In doing so, Spielberg makes a brilliant statement. These people who came to fight were truly regular people. They didn’t know what they were doing. Just that they had to do it. World War II was truly fought by these ordinary men who never saw themselves as heroes.

When we finally get to Private Ryan, Spielberg pauses the action for one of the most curious epiphanies in any war film ever. Why save Private Ryan? As Sizemore’s character suggests, Private Ryan is a concrete person. When (or if) they get back home, they can remember that the one thing they truly did to help the war was save Private Ryan. They can think that the Germans they killed or the bridge they defended may have won the war, but being able to see and hear Private Ryan back home gives them the courage to keep fighting on. To know they counted. They were, in their own world, heroes.

Somehow, Spielberg truly recreated World War II for this film. It’s surreal. With brilliant cinematography and wonderful set design, Spielberg put us back in 1944, France. Everything looks and feels right. It’s stunning how accurate everything can feel, especially the action sequences that create a truly terrifying experience.

Today, we fight a war in Iraq against an unknown enemy. The people over there are the same ordinary Americans who as well as they hope, are not sure what the future holds. It’s hard to have the same experience in War today that those men fought over sixty years ago now. But Saving Private Ryan is a triumph of the American spirit of heroism that suggests that maybe saving each other is sometimes the only thing we can do to feel righted. It’s hard to hold to the same principles in another war, but maybe the same idea transfers over to today. Saving Private Ryan is one of the most realistic, honest, and brilliant war films ever created.