“I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to occupy your house.” 31 July 2020
A Bridge Too Far tells the story of Operation Market Garden - the Allied attempt to gain control of strategically important bridges in Belgium and Holland so they might more easily punch holes in the German lines. As far as WWII movies go, this one seems to be as, if not more, historically accurate as any you’ll find. And I think that’s one of the film’s real strengths - it’s not a rah rah war movie. In this one, just as they did in real life, the Allies fail. Not something you usually see in a Hollywood film. There’s also a certain degree of realism in the battle scenes. The violence is often unrelenting. People get hurt, they bleed, they suffer, and they die. Again, something that’s often not seen in the usual sanitized WWII film from this period.
The film features just about anybody who was anybody (as long as they were male) making movies in 1977. The cast is huge. Whether I cared for their characters or not, I found the performances of Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Hopkins, and Maximilian Schell particularly enjoyable. I can’t say the same for Robert Redford (who had too much of a 70s look and vibe) or scene-chewing Elliott Gould. Neither performance worked for me.
Finally, as much as I’ve always enjoyed A Bridge Too Far, it’s not perfect. My biggest complaint is that at 175 minutes, that’s at least a half-hour too long. Surely there were things and scenes that could have been edited out. For example, you could cut all scenes featuring James Caan and it wouldn’t change the movie much at all. Not only do his scenes have little to do with anything else in the movie, his race through the forest where he’s able to elude about half the German army is ludicrous.
