A Bridge Too Far – Blu-ray movie review

Richard Attenborough's monumental war drama is about one of the most stirring battles of World War II, based on the best-seller by Cornelius Ryan... The film presents the most impressive all-star cast ever assembled for a single production...

World War II's "Operation Market Garden" would have put the Allies in control of the major road leading into the industrial Ruhr, the heart of the German war machine... The war would have ended in a matter of weeks... Instead, what Market Garden left in its wake, through a combination of costly miscalculations, bad weather, battlefield politics and tactical errors, were more than 17,000 British, American, Dutch and Polish casualties, nearly twice as many dead as in Normandy...

The film itself, contrary to what many would claim, IS NOT another glorification of American heroism. While there is a certain American involvement which is rightly due, the film is very much centered on the Brits at Arnhem. Afterall, they were the ones that got massacred, right? Adding to that, the initial setup of the operation (which the film took surprisingly long to cover, and probably killed off the interest of the average movie-goer/critic) was almost solely concerned with the British planning, with one or two references to the American G.I. (I guess they had to put in those mini-episodes of American servicemen to attract the American viewing public).

I'm not going to rehash the plot here as so many have done, by now the story should be fairly well known. In general the movie has very few detractors. I have to agree that Ryan O'Neal did seem a -bit- young for a General. The ending seemed abrupt, with no real conclusion, I felt there was no closure, even though we know how the war ended. Length is somewhat an issue, pushing 3 hours, it's not something you can just pop in the DVD and watch anytime.

The film offers an unrelenting view of war. Attenborough pulls no punches. The film has no Saving Private Ryan style effects but somehow is more powerful for having less gore. He also makes sure everyone involved, British, Americans, Poles and Germans, gets an equal amount of treatment. There is none of the trite patriotism that exists in other war films here.

Many might consider this a purely masculine film, a point which I find hard to contradict, as I don't know many (in fact none) girls who really like this film. That's fair enough, as war films generally have a massively male audience. Also, don't watch this expecting a simple Anzio/60's war film narrative. Rather, it's more for the discerning military buff, which whilst it has holes and inaccuracies in it (the portrayal of Browning, whilst very good, is a bit harsh, and in fact it was doubtful if the Guards armoured division could have broken through to Arnhem, despite what the film implies), generally it is very well made and a throughly good watch. Best war film since "The Longest Day".

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