Starring: Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier
Director: Richard Attenborough
Studio: Fox
Video: 2.35:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 widescreen, 1080p HD
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English DD 4.0, French DD 5.1, Spanish Mono
Extras: Trailers
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean
Length: 176 minutes
Rating: ***
A Bridge Too Far was Richard Attenborough’s vision for the epic World War II movie. Featuring an all-star cast with way too many big names to list, the nearly three-hour film is probably the most extravagant and elaborately produced WWII movie ever, with a mind-boggling assemblage of period accurate props and sets. The story revolves around Operation Market Garden, a plan devised by British general Montgomery, which was designed to build on the success of the Normandy invasion and bring a quick end to the war. The plan was to drop a massive amount of troops and equipment behind enemy lines, and then to secure key bridges along the Ruhr that would allow the Allies unhindered entry into Germany in their push towards Berlin. Unfortunately, very little went as planned (due to countless missteps and faulty intelligence), and the Allied defeat at the Arnhem Bridge ultimately only served to extend the war through the following year, and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
On that same token, and most unfortunately, very little goes well with this movie, which by all accounts should be a classic of the war movie genre. I saw this film at the time of its release in the theater, and about two hours in, I remember wishing that I’d gotten a bigger bucket of popcorn to help ease my pain. The great actors in this movie are so numerous, and yet there are so many wooden performances – it’s as though no one involved in this project had their hearts in it. Some of the set pieces are spectacular, with assemblages of men and war vehicles like nothing you’ve ever seen – but the acting (or lack of it) is just flat-out abysmal, to say the least. And to make matters worse, the action is frequently plodding; of course, in a movie that documents the numerous snafus that occurred during Operation Market Garden, this is somewhat understandable. But overall, the movie has a very dated appearance, and John Addison’s score is just plain awful; I just can’t see how Richard Attenborough could approve of the music that accompanies so many of the scenes – it was almost downright laughable.
From a technical standpoint, the film hasn’t aged well. Fox obviously didn’t lavish the kind of attention on A Bridge Too Far that they did on a sister release, the magnificently restored Patton, which easily blows away this film in all aspects of image and sound quality. The film seems to have a constant haze of grain throughout; if this was by design, it just looks terrible and washed-out. Most scenes just don’t seem to be very well focused, probably due to the persistent haze. And the DTS Master Audio soundtrack is wasted – there’s very little here in terms of surround information, and there’s a noticeable discrepancy in volume levels throughout. At points, the dialogue was so relatively quiet, I’d turn up the level, only to almost have my ears blown out by the next action sequence. And this film contains one of my numero uno cardinal sins; throughout the film, a variety of languages are spoken, and there are no subtitles to accompany the action for these sequences – you can only understand what’s going on by turning on the full subtitles, which are EXTREMELY distracting, to say the least! And, unlike the excellent Patton package (which contains a full disc of bonus features), there are no bonus features!
If you’re a fan of this movie (you have my sympathies), this may be the version to own. For the rest of us, it’s definitely a rental. Only for die-hard fans of the genre.
— Tom Gibbs
