A Bridge Too Far (1977)
directed by
screenplay by
This suffers from seventiesstaritis. In deliberate imitation of The Longest Day (1962), another film based on a book by Cornelius Ryan, Attenborough stuffed every role, big or small with some star. So we get James Caan as an American sergeant, Liv Ullman, and Lawrence Olivier as Dutch civilians, and Edward Fox and Michael Caine as British commanders. They're actually all ok. Especially good are Anthony Hopkins as Lt. Col John Frost, Gene Hackman as Maj Gen Sosabowksi, and Dirk Bogarde as Lt Gen Browning. Unfortunately, Robert Redford and Elliot Gould are awful as unrepentant men from 1977 playacting at WWII soldiers. Their scenes totally ruin any sense of being back in 1944.
The film does succeed in making the history and the military planning and failures clear. You understand where the various characters and forces are and Attenborough makes it clear what's at stake. The battle scenes are also fairly honest and brutal for their time. The destruction of Arnhem by the Germans and the harm caused to its inhabitants is also presented in a similar blunt way.
There are a lot of good things about this, but I'm not totally sure if I want to keep it. I'm not sure it's something I'm ever going to really watch again. I'm going to think about it a little and maybe watch some of the documentary extras. I know I'm hedging, but for now, I'm going to vote undecided.
Verdict: unsure
UPDATE: following some discussion and several insightful comments on Facebook, we've decided to keep it
 |
| Michael Caine and Edward Fox |
No comments:
Post a Comment