A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Directed by Richard Attenborough. Starring Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Dirk Bogarde, Ryan O’Neal, Michael Caine, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, Edward Fox, Laurence Olivier, Liv Ullmann, Robert Redford, Hardy Krüger, Michael Byrne, Wolfgang Preiss, James Caan, Elliott Gould, Donald Pickering, Erik van ‘t Wout, Peter Faber, Paul Copley, Frank Grimes, Christopher Good, Denholm Elliott, Siem Vroom. [PG]

An all-star ensemble headlines this large-scale recreation of one of the biggest military blunders in World War II: Operation Market Garden, an effort by the Allies to drop several regiments behind enemy lines in order to capture and hold several bridges leading through Holland into Germany, and as the title hints, their ambitions exceeded their capabilities. Purely on the size and scope of its production, a rousing success, with meticulous historical and design detail merging with the bombardment of heavy artillery as waves of aircraft and tanks plow through Europe—the screen being filled with hundreds of paratroopers dropping from the sky is the “money shot” in a movie full of “money shots.” But human interest and artistic vision both fall short, with too many moving parts and protagonists and locations to clearly know at all times what’s happening, where, and why, and the sheer abundance of names and faces leaves precious little room for personality or humanity—the viewer is encouraged to play “spot the star,” but it becomes clear quickly that few of them will accomplish much outside of strict duty and war movie cliché (e.g., Caan guarantees that a fellow soldier won’t die, so doing whatever it takes to rescue that fellow is the full extent of his character’s purpose). Long, but necessarily so, and had the storytelling been shaped by a more prudent hand—this is where that missing “artistic vision” would’ve come in handy—the film could have afforded even more minutes shouldering additional breadth and information (but no one will gripe that the filmmakers short-changed on the explosions). Screenplay by William Goldman from the Cornelius Ryan tome. Director Attenborough appears in a cameo.

66/100