A Bridge Too Far

Rating:
Summary: A movie not thought about far enough....
Review: To understand the film, you need to read the right book to understand the battle: Arnhem 1944 : Operation 'Market Garden' (Campaign, No 24)by Stephen Badsey, David G. Chandler (Editor).

Once you have a grip on reality, which was that "Arnhem" was not a "failure"---when you realize that war is not a game of "win" and "lose"---you will begin to appreciate this movie better and not resort to whining cliches like "war is hell". You are not helping anyone with cries that there are no answers in war, when history is filled with answers if you go FAR ENOUGH in your studies. In war, you try to find an opening to pour through and get inside an enemy's supply, command/control and his industrial base to collapse him rather than slam into him and slug it out. At Arnhem bridge some things could and should have been done to keep the bridge (drop south directly onto the bridge as Gavin said, give the British glider-delivered armored vehicles like Brens and Tetrarch light tanks or even bicycles, take the ferry etc. etc.) but these miss the point which was that if we had kept Arnhem bridge we would have simply been stopped by the germans in force on the other side of the river. We would be slamming into the alert enemy in strength at that point, which you don't want to do in war. We from that point on sought other penetration points to cross the Rhine and roll into Germany. We tried at that spot, the opening was not there, this is the price of doing business, hardly a "failure".

The only failure in this film is that it doesn't express that the aim was to find an undefended opening into Germany to collapse her means to fight, and this meant more than just the physical means to cross a river. If audiences realized this and not been so fixated by the bridge as the title makes you do, you will see why the leaders, Gavin, Sasibowsky, Browning, Horrocks at the tower do not push the final few miles to reach the bridge. Taking the bridge would not change the fact that the opening they sought into Germany was not there. This requires a sense of maturity and understanding of war at a higher level than we are used to, but I think we are up to it.

Now to the movie---its simply the BEST war movie ever made. Better than SPR from a point of view of studying war--SPR is a message to the hearts/minds of this generation to get off its rear. This film has the best depiction of combining arms yet shown---the rolling artillery barrage landing ahead of the Irish Grenadier's tanks, supposedly suppressing the German anti-tank gunners. When we see that even after hurting the Germans, the Germans are still not stopped, a very important lesson that infantry must clear ahead for armor in closed terrain is shown. We in the west expect too much from our artillery and air strikes. The defense of the Bridge scenes show us that we need plentiful anti-tank weapons that every Soldier can have, and he should have a gunshield/body armor to protect him.

The music propelling this movie is majestic and was written by one of the participants in the battle--John Addison. You can't beat that for accuracy, he was there! This movie and the music triumphs even if most people do not understand that the battle was indeed a triumph and a lesson to us to structure our Airborne forces to have better mobility means and to insure our 2-D armored forces are not so bridge dependant in the first place.

AIRBORNE!

Rating:
Summary: Awesome WW2 Action
Review: Perhaps one of the best "classic" World War II films ever. Ranks up there with "The Longest Day", "The Great Escape", "The Big Red One" and other fact-based movies. However, the movie is like a fictional drama in that the story moves quickly and keeps the viewer's interest throughout. It's a long one...so bring lots of pop corn and soda to the TV area! Highly recommended for those who enjoyed "Saving Private Ryan" and other more recent WWII movies too.

Rating:
Summary: An hour too long..
Review: Ive been thinking about what to write regarding this particular film and its no easy task. I notice that most reviewers have mixed feelings concerning 'A Bridge too far' and i suppose that consenous is quite justified. This movie would have been a nightmare to create as 'Operation Market Garden'was in my oppinion, the most confusing and bungled event of the war. I have read several books on 'Market Garden' and at times found it very difficult to comprehend. I can imagine that viewers with a limited knowledge of this battle would have trouble understanding the story which i feel had great potential. (i would love to see Spielberg have a go at this one) I also see a few comparisons being made too 'the longest day' but this film is certainly not in the 'classic war film'category. The cast has good depth though i found that many actors did not leave a lasting impresion on me. (possibly because of their limited experience in war films) To its credit, the film is fairly accurate and the use of German speech with English undertitles gives it a little more authenticity. Perhaps they could have concentrated on certain charactors or objectives a little more rather than switch scenes every few minutes. The movie does sit in my collection but gathers dust more often than not.

Rating:
Summary: Wanted to be "The Longest Day"
Review: ...but it ended up just being "the longest movie."

To my mind, A Bridge Too Far is a sort of hybrid between the really great classic war movies, The Longest Day being the standard bearer, and the grueling intimacy of Saving Private Ryan. It doesn't really work perfectly in either way, and man, does it ever last a loooong time.

Take, for example, the famous scene of Robert Redford's river crossing in Bridge. We're supposed to feel the sort of gut wrenching terror we felt on Omaha beach in Ryan, but we're also meant to be having the sort of cavalcade of stars we saw in Longest Day ("There's Robert Mitchum!"). I can't really identify with Redford, and anyway the Bridge depiction of him has him practically sainted, just this side of George Washington as he says his Hail Mary thing over and over. Because we're supposed to be feeling the disorientation of the actual soldiers, a la Ryan, we lose track of the big picture/Longest Day context... it's just flawed, and I wasn't moved by it as much as confused and dissatisfied.

A Bridge Too Far is watchable, but it goes in too many directions at once, so it can't rate among the classics of the genre for me. I recommend you read the book instead, or at least read it first.

Rating:
Summary: Good Film, Bad DVD
Review: This disc is an example of a relatively good film ruined by bad mastering. The video is the most noticeable example of this fact. There are artifacts galore which pop up in many places, and were noticeable in my first viewing. There is a lot of noise and pixelation throughout which makes it hard to see what is going on, especially the last few scenes where Sean Connery's men are walking through a rainy area. Parts of the film seem to look very dated and should have been remastered instead of being released as is. The audio is lackluster and relatively unremarkable. The movie itself was first-rate. The acting and directing was very well done. The story gives us a grim reminder that, in war, the good guys don't always win. Overall, I think this film would have benefitted immensely from either Criterion Collection treatment or at least a serious effort by MGM to remaster the film.

Rating:
Summary: Worth watching, a convincing film
Review: A host of soon to be Hollywood superstars as well as unforgetable old timers come together in this masterpiece of epic proportions. Capturing an exciting and action packed atmosphere in the first tape that transforms into a powerfully tragic tone in the second, the film itself carries a powerful anti-war message. Fine performances all around.

Rating:
Summary: THE Consumate War Film of World War Two!
Review: This, friends, is a gigantic and extremely well-done big budget war film detailing the disastrous September 1944 Allied attempt to break out of the deadlock in France, and thereby dramatically shorten the winning of the Second World War. Operation Market-Garden, the brainchild of British Field-Marshall Montgomery was a very risky attempt to pull a large daylight airborne lightning raid on several bridges in the Netherlands and by capturing and holding them, provide the Allies with a superhighway into the German heartland. It stars Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, and Anthony Hopkins in central roles.

Of course, everything goes wrong, and the viewer is immediately sucked into the absorbing drama associated with the individual men and women caught in the trap of circumstance and history. It is an entertaining objective study in the ways in which military egos and subjective interests of the military hierarchy doom the individual soldiers in a desperate and vainglorious attempt to prove themselves correct. The film fairly accurately depicts the way in which these individual egos persist in prosecuting this military action regardless of a number of warnings (and intelligence evidence) that the strength of German forces in the area were in actuality much larger and formative than the British hierarchy wanted to believe.

The film is well worth watching, and is star-studded. Like another interesting war film , The Longest Day, it used the old Hollywood contract system to get everyone from Robert Redford to James Caan to Lawrence Olivier to Elliot Gould small parts in the enterprise. Hard to picture Redford getting wasted, and to some extent this small criticism probably overstates the only bad news about this brilliantly filmed true tale that is well acted, well scripted, and very believable. So relax, amigo, because this is a wonderful if a bit sobering and accurate depiction of the unpredictable fate of men at war, and is a entertaining way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon learning more about the duties, obligations, and frailties of ordinary men caught in the politics, desperation and extraordinary circumstances called war. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Overproduced... But not bad.
Review: An interesting production about the disaster operation Market-Garden that the allies launched against the Germans in France, 1944. It seems the director was more concerned about the special effects and the ego of his actors then the basic foundations of the film. Actors like Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Max Schnell all are great, and help the movie sincerly, but god get some spunk back into it! All in all, the movie is very long, overproduced, but has good historical background and acting, but should be re-titled " A Budget Too Long "

Rating:
Summary: Last Great WWII Epic!
Review: This was the last great WWII epic that we saw until 1998. Nothing after 1977 came out that was this big and this good. Very underrated film about the Airborne invasion of Holland during the fall of 1944. This film shows in great detail the most disastrous battle for the Americans and British of the war. It was also good to see the Polish unit in there as well! Not knowing that they had just landed in the same area where several SS Panzer outfits are located, it took nine days to get things together and only then did they re-treat! Very Historically Accurate to both the book and the real battle. This is a great film and was the most realistic up to it's time! Grade:A-

Rating:
Summary: Quantitative Evaluation
Review: Audio Merits:6/10;Video Merits:7/10;Scenario Merits:9/10;Cinematographic Merits:9/10:Overall Artistic Performance:9/10;DVD Extras:7/10;Musical Merits:8/10;Recording Total Quality:8/10. Professor's Recommendation:A masterpiece among the WWII films. Nevertheless, DVD version requires reprocessing.