Captain John Miller – Saving Private Ryan

I could honestly go on forever about this movie; it is one of my favorites. All of the characters are outstanding; however, Captain John Miller seems to play the biggest role in the movie.

Played by Tom Hanks, John Miller is a captain in the Marines division in WWII. The movie opens with Captain Miller on a landing craft giving his men some final words before they storm Omaha Beach on D-day. At first Captain Miller seems like a pretty average role for a war movie, but eventually he stands out amongst all the characters as a single unique individual caught up in the world’s second great war.

Captain Miller is a mysterious character, at first almost nothing is known about him. His first name is not even revealed until a good twenty minutes into the movie. Miller makes himself a mystery to everyone he knows. The other characters mention a contest to find out where Miller is from or what he did for a living back home.

The depth of his character slowly evolves as he shows more of himself through his emotions. There is a scene in the movie where a man under Miller’s command dies, one of almost a hundred men who had been killed under Miller’s command. After this character’s death, Miller wanders away from the squad. He cries for a moment, and after regaining his composure, he goes back to his men with a stone face.

As a man of mystery, you never really learn much about what Captain Miller has done or who he was before the war. Instead his true character is revealed through his secrecy and how he reacts to emotions.