A Bridge Too Far

Rating:
Summary: a minor correction
Review: With regard to those reviewer(s) who critique the casting in this movie, General James Gavin -- portrayed by Ryan O'Neal -- was born in 1907, making him 37 years old during Operation Marketgarden. Gen. Gavin was one of the -- if not the -- youngest US Army generals in WWII.

Rating:
Summary: Very impressed
Review: Simply one of the best WWII films i have ever seen in my life.

Rating:
Summary: Good story, all star cast, but disappointing
Review: After looking at the cast of this film I was expecting something great, but I was disappointed. I disagree with those who say this is 1 of the best war films of all time. I recently saw "Saving Private Ryan" and there is no comparison, "Ryan" is much better. The actors are too stiff, saying lines that just seem too scripted and unnatural, given their situation. Only James Caan, Elliot Gould and yes, Gene Hackman with the bad accent, give any life and emotion to this movie. Baby faced Ryan O'Neal isn't believable as a general. The movie is 3 hours long, but barely spends any time on character development making it hard to feel for any of these guys.
The battle scenes are very good and it is based on true events, so if war movies are your thing, then see this movie. But if you're looking for more than just a clinical recreation of WWII battles, keep looking.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Movie but slightly annoyed by subtitle controls
Review: Considering the number of other reviews for this title, I will keep this brief. I'd recommend browsing other reviews too.

I saw the movie for the first time on this DVD. I originally got interested in this title because of Sean Connery. As I scanned the DVD case, I began noticing other names - Gene Hackman, Elliot Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier (which was a shock), Robert Redford, and Maximilian Schell. At this point, I had to get it.

I loved this movie. Plain and simple. I also found the way certain people died to be interesting - even ironic at times. Some scenes showed how senseless some of the deaths were.

One actor bugged me - Ryan O'Neal. I don't like him in this movie. I don't care for his acting style. He doesn't come across as real. I kept wanting to compare him to Buster Crabbe who starred in the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers serials.

The booklet inside the DVD case has some nice trivia information.

The subtitle selection bugged me on this DVD. I'm used to Japanese Anime DVDs where I can easily change the language and subtitles while the movie is playing. This is locked out on this DVD, forcing you to go to the menu to change the settings. ...at least on my player. I'm guessing this was to make things less confusing for the average user. For example, there are two different sets of English subtitles - one that only translates the German dialogue while the other provides subtitles for all dialogue. I sometimes watch DVDs late at night so I like using subtitles so I don't disturb others in the house. That's why I pay close attention to these type of features. Something about my setup seems to interfere with the closed captions. I just started noticing it with multiple DVDs so I don't know what might be up. I can't say it's a defect of the DVD right now.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive attention to historical detail and accuracy!
Review: If you're looking for one of those rare war movies that really emphasizes historical accuracy without sacrificing great action, this is it. The movie is based on Cornelius Ryan's bestselling book by the same name, and recounts the ill-fated Allied efforts to capture the Arnhem bridge. The phrase "all star cast" is a gross understatement. Tons of great actors and acting in this flick.

I personally enjoyed the account of the river assault at Nijmegen bridge led by Major Julian Cook (played by Robert Redford). This and other scenes were riveting in their intensity and very satisfying to the historian in me for their attempt to portray the action as it occurred.

I guess my only criticisms would be the length of the movie (which can't really be avoided if this story is to be told properly), and Gene Hackman's god-awful fake Polish accent (he played Sosabowski). Overall, though, it's a very good movie and I recommend it highly for anyone who is historically interested in this battle, or who simply wants a few hours of solid entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: Heavy handed- but good nonetheless
Review: A star studded- perhaps overly star heavy- treatment of one of the great campaigns of WWII, told in a heavy-handed but historically accurate manner. It suffers from the same sort of faults that marred The Longest Day- the dialogue has a tendency to be overly ponderous, and constantly broadcasts what's to come next. There are few, if any surprises, and that tends to make the pacing of the film seem slow and heavy. So many stars keep popping up that it detracts from the pacing of the film. Look! It's Sir Lawrence, and he's talking to Liv Ulman! I recall when I first saw the film thinking "what's Robert Redford doing out there in the middle of WWII?"

And yet, the story and the details of the operation are told accurately- far more so than in A Bridge Too Far- and the scenes of battle and soldiers being wounded are realistic in a manner not typical of the time.

What bogs down the movie, and what made it unpopular at the time, I think, was the never ending sense of defeat and hopelessness of the troops at Arnhem that permeates so much of the movie. There's never any question that theres is a lost cause, and that they'll be lucky if any of them make it out alive.

This is a movie for the war historian, and not the casual viewer. But for that specific audience it's a valuable addition to the library.

Rating:
Summary: one of the ten best war movies of the twentieth century
Review: this movie shows just how good an all star cast can go. It is very long. Yet i find it vivid, moving, exciting. It is surely one of the last of the good old war movies. The film makes itself like the longest day an overrall lenghty adaption of one of world war 2's monumental battles. they both don't get into the horrors of war like Apocalypse Now or Saving Private Ryan. Yet they glamourously display the mode and movement of the battles themselves. This is what keeps this film going besides the fairly decent action sequences and engagements, the strong acting, and/or very well detailed showing of the allied and german commanders striking in the battle. I like The longest day a little more than this but i still like A bridge too far.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing DVD
Review: Without commenting on the content of the film itself, I'd only like to say that in my opinion the video quality was about the worst I've seen on DVD. As I watched white flecks popping like VHS dropouts, I was totally distracted from enjoying a film I've watched numerous times. I guess I've have been spoiled from viewing so many pristine images on most DVD releases.

Rating:
Summary: Four Stars for War Movie Buffs....
Review: three stars for everyone else. If you're not a warmovie or WWII history buff, you're probably going to find "A Bridge Too Far" pretty heavy going. Based on actual events and people taken from Cornelius Ryan's masterful book of the same name- still one of the best books ever written about a WWII campaign, "A Bridge Too Far" details one of the most interesting operations of the entire war- an attempt to capture a series of bridges with paratroops which would link up a highway across the Rhine and into Germany ending the war by Christmas 1944. Unfortunately, the operation, codenamed Market-Garden, was a failure and almost doomed to such a fate from its inception.

A huge big-budget film about an Allied defeat probably could not have been made in any other decade than the 70's. The post Vietnam hangover and its anti-military fallout, especially of high command decisions, would seemingly allow a filmmaker to delve into a defeat such as Market-Garden which plays perfectly into a Vietnam-like story of military egos gone astray cooking up grandiose plans and ignoring anything that interferes with those plans including the risk to the lives of thousands of young soldiers. ABTF attempts to tackle this topic by making the real antagonists not the Germans, but British Field Marshall Montgomery, who is never seen, and British Lt. Gen Browing (Dirk Bogarde) who acts as the voice of Montgomery. Unfortunately, director Richard Attenborough was not up to the job to make this angle work. Maybe "A Bridge Too Far" was too much for one man. In contrast "The Longest Day," the film which ABTF mimics with its huge all-star cast and screenplay based on a Cornelius Ryan book, was directed by four different men. While "The Longest Day" was hailed by critics and audiences alike, ABTF received mixed reviews, and audiences in 1977 were more interested in seeing "Star Wars" than a movie which has garnered a reputation for ponderous boredom.

I loved this movie as a kid since there weren't too many color WWII movies with this kind of budget- the columns of armored vehicles, the mass paratroop drops, and some of the set piece battle scenes are fantastic to watch. I still find Grabner's attack across Arnhem bridge and Julian Cook's (Robert Redford)assault across the Waal River to be terrific filmmaking. However, ABTF contents itself to tell us more about stuff rather than show it such as the 82nd's attempt to take Nijmegem town and, although the film details John Frost's (Anthony Hopkins) battle on the bridge, the rest of British 1st Airborne's struggle is barely shown- the film reduces all the fighting around Oosterbeek to shells going off around division HQ. The result is a rather quiet war movie with lot's of generals talking, but sparse action.

In many ways ABTF is a triumph, but it's more of a triumph of logistics than of film. It tries very hard to touch the heart, with its story of sacrifice and heroism which might have been in vain, but it really never succeeds.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Owning
Review: What I would have liked to see in the DVD is more extra features, like behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast. The amount of materiel needed to make this movie was pretty staggering. A lot of the stuff was authentic, and it is a miracle that so much of it could be scraped together 33 years after the actual event.

Anyway, the movie is presented in letterbox format, which does it justice. It tries to be faithful to the real event, and does a pretty good job of it.