A Bridge Too Far Movie Review

 A Bridge Too Far (1977)

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Written by: Cornelius Ryan (based on the book by), William Goldman (screenplay by)
Directed by: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Gene Hackman, James Caan, Elliot Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Robert Redford
Rated: PG
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Plot
Operation Market Garden, September 1944: The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines.

Verdict
This is a very long movie, and it feels like it. While this has a few good scenes, they're separated by scenes that are repetitive. You'll reach a point long before the movie ends that you'll wish it would just get on with it. This movie's focus is the logistics of the operation, and that doesn't lend well to a movie. The most fun ends up being all of the well-known actors that appear.
Skip it.

Review
With the setting of World War II and the huge cast it immediately made me think of The Thin Red Line, but these movies are very different. This movie is more of an action war movie, less a rumination on what war and life mean.

Sean Connery plays General Urquhart

Set during World War II, this depicts the largest ever airborne assault. Thirty-five thousand men will be sent across enemy lines in Holland to seize bridges. The plan seems a bit arrogant as reports of tanks are ignored. Well into this it seems like a logistics movie, planning the mission more so than executing it. It really wants to adhere to what actually happened, but that bogs this down with a lot of characters and goals. I don't need an action movie, but this crams a lot of planning into the movie, evidenced by the length.

Michael Cane plays Colonel Vandeleur

Finally the air drop scene provides action. I really like how the movie doesn't try to dramatize it. We see a lot of planes, troops, and parachutes. The technical side of this is really impressive. The production acquired a bunch of planes and air dropped one thousand men for these shots.

Anthony Hopkins plays Colonel Frost

The mission started as an uphill battle and never got easier. This certainly shows some realities of war, but there are also many movies that do it better. This tries to show everything but does do any story justice as three countries coordinate for the attack. If the movie picked one country as a focus, it would have had time to really delve into the story. That and the platoons faced a lot of the same problems, so scenes feel repetitive. There's probably a good movie hidden somewhere in this, it just needs a lot of cutting.

I like one of the last scenes where the generals look back and reflect on what went wrong. It's pretty much everything. Despite how compelling this one scene is, the rest of the movie just doesn't support it. There's too much happening and not enough delineation.