Review of A Bridge Too Far (1977) by David G — 26 Dec 2007

To my despair, I never fail to be underwhelmed by this "epic" war movie. Sure it's a competent enough account of Operation Market Garden and a lot of effort obviously went into it but I find it hard to understand what's going on, where groups of people are in comparison to others and generally building a picture in my mind of what the battlefields look like. It feels disjointed and distant and the plethora of big names just makes me feel like I'm watching Sean Connery, James Caan, Robert Redford and co dressing up like soldiers and playing a game, rather than seeing General Urquhart, Eddie Dohun and the other characters in a "real" war-zone. The only section I really enjoyed was Anthony Hopkin's dogged defense of his positions in Arnhem - great to see the good ol' British stiff upper lip in the face of defeat.

A Bridge Too Far is a good film, don't get me wrong, but it suffers from several problems and in the end makes Operation Market Garden feel far more small-scale than it actually was. Excluding the Band of Brothers episode which covered one tiny section, you'd have to say that this is the best account of the battle, but then, what else is there?