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    		•

    FILMS

    A Bridge Too Far (1977)
  • Starring Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell, Liv Ullmann, Denholm Elliott

  • Directed by Richard Attenborough

    • As much as I love watching movies, it came as an incredible shock that I had never heard of this film. Granted it's an older movie, and there are plenty of those I haven't seen—but that's not an excuse. Look at that cast. Just look at it! Today you couldn't afford to get all of those guys onscreen together!

    I first heard about this film one evening when my friend Jeff came over to my house. He had just purchased a few DVDs and showed me this one. I had never heard of it before and he said he bought it for 10 bucks. What a bargain, we both thought. It can't be horrible, can it? I mean, look at that cast! Something in there's gotta be good.

    We talked about watching it, but then ended up doing something else. A few months later I was in the local video store and saw it on the For Sale DVD rack. Ten bucks. Figuring "why not?" I bought it.

    And I loved it. It has so many of my favorite actors. Connery, Hackman, Caine, Caan, Hopkins, Elliott, and, did I mention Connery? Man-oh-man! This movie rocks!

    If you don't like war movies then go ahead and pass on this film. If you don't like ensemble films, then leave this one alone. If you don't like movies based on real events, watch something else.

    A Bridge Too Far is about a gigantic military undertaking during WWII. The idea is this: operation "Market Garden." It was a plan which would open the road to Berlin. "Market Garden" involved the largest air-drop in the history of war. Men would parachute into the towns that had bridges over the Rhine and would secure them until the tanks and jeeps and support could arrive via a single, narrow road. The timing would have to be perfect for it to succeed—something that is incredibly impossible to do during war.

    Suffice it to say: Things don't go well at all. There are problems at every turn of the road.

    This is a big film—an epic in every sense of the term. While it can be confusing at times, I think that's just a function of the type of film it is. It stands to reason that some of the complicated story and characterization is going to be lost with a film like this—there's so much going on, I found it hard to take it all. I think I'd benefit from watching A Bridge Too Far a second time.

    If you like war movies, I highly recommend this A Bridge Too Far. While nowhere near as graphic and bloody as Saving Private Ryan, I think it's just as good.