A Bridge Too Far (1977) - film review

September, 1944.  D-Day has come and gone but the allied advance has slowed to a crawl owing to over-extended supply lines.  Field Marshal Montgomery and General Paton are both confident that they can win the war with one more decisive push.  U.S. President Eisenhower backs Montgomery’s plan – codenamed Operation Market Garden - to land 35,000 paratroops behind enemy lines to secure half a dozen bridges in Holland.  This will allow the allied troops to sweep into Germany’s industrial heartland and bring about a hasty end to the war in Europe.  Unfortunately, the one thing the military commanders have overlooked is the strength of German forces in the region of the Dutch town Arnhem.  This oversight is enough to scupper the entire operation and cost the lives of thousands of men...

A Bridge Too Far is an ambitious and stirring account of one of the greatest military blunders of WWII, based on a book by Cornelius Ryan, who also wrote The Longest Day.  With a budget of 22 million dollars, a fair chunk of which went on its star-studded cast, the film is one of the most extravagant war films of its time, and, on its first release, it was dismissed by many critics as an overblown festival of self-indulgence.  Three decades on, the film is more highly thought of and can hardly fail to impress with its stunningly realised action sequences and harrowing depiction of the carnage that is war at its ugliest.

Although most of the big name actors appear on the screen for barely more than a few minutes, most of them deliver convincing performances that have an immediate impact.  A few stand out – James Caan as the sergeant determined to save the life of his young captain, Sean Connery as the major general who is the first to realise the enormity of the military failure, Liv Ullmann as a Dutch woman forced to decorate her front living room with dying soldiers, and so on.  William Goldman’s well-crafted screenplay avoids the familiar wartime caricatures and brings a touch of humanity to offset the grisly horrors of war.

The film has plenty of big scale action scenes to thrill and startle but what are just as effective, and far more poignant, are the passages of quite reflection where we can take stock and appreciate the consequences, in human suffering, of the flawed military escapade.  Despite its long run time and sprawling narrative, A Bridge Too Far manages to be both a compelling anti-war drama and an insightful account of a doomed wartime exploit.

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