Of course this movie is being often compared to "The Great Escape". The similarities between the story lines are striking and some of the sequences are almost exactly the same. Only keep in mind that this movie was actually released a year before the great escape and this movie its story is based on the real events as lived by Charles Coward, who also served as a consultant for this movie, while "The Great Escape" is based on a totally other true story.
The movie is not an heavy confronting WW II POW movie. Instead its more of a comedy at times with almost slapstick like events and characters. It does make the movie a bit unbalanced and silly to watch but for me it also made the movie very light and easy. I'm not really sure though what for a movie this was supposed to be; A comedy or a drama. It's too incoherent and unbalanced to really say.
The movie is obviously low-budget but they used some creative solutions to hide this, in the movie.
The main character is really fascinating. He is being played by Dirk Bogarde, who of course is always a pleasure to see as the main lead, regardless of the role he plays. The rest of the characters are a bit muddled in and simply not interesting enough. The movie also changes often of setting with as a result that new characters get introduced and old ones abandoned.
All in all its not a terribly memorable movie and certainly no classic. The movie is too incoherent for that and the most of the character too uninteresting. Nevertheless this is a great movie to kill some time with. Nothing heavy, just some good old fashioned light-entertainment, with some good moments. Worth seeing if you get the chance.
The story set around and about 'Operation Market Garden' itself, seems like good enough material to make a good movie with. It however is a very complex thing when one tries to tell the story of 'Operation Market Garden' from every view point possible; Americans, the Polish, the Britts, Germans, the Dutch. This movie tells all of the stories of basically every brigade involved during the 'Operation Market Garden'. Sounds like a great and fair tribute to all those who were involved. After all I often hear people complaining when an Hollywood WW II movie only focuses on the Americans, as if they were the only ones who fought and help to win WW II. To those persons who often complain about this, I recommend them to watch this movie. They will have to come to the conclusion that a movie that tells the story from every point of view, is unnecessarily confusion, overlong and focuses on far too many characters and plot-lines.
The failure of the (over)ambitious 'Operation Market Garden' is a fascinating story. Had the operation fully succeeded, it would had ended the war before Christmas 1944. This movie does provide good information about the mission and the battles fought during it and the parties involved. Purely based on that this movie is a good and educational one as well. A movie however needs more than just a fascinating premise. There are several problems with "A Bridge Too Far" that make this movie a, what I would like to call, flawed grand epic. The movie is still big and uses lots of sets and extras but none of it really impresses since the movie tries to cover way too much of the story and focuses too little on the effects of the war on the characters. It makes the movie feel very stylized and not humane and realistic enough.
There are countless unnecessary sequences but above all there are way too many and unnecessary characters. The movie has an immensely impressive looking all-star cast but at the same time that also is the down fall of the movie. Basically every star of the movie is given just as much screen time. Sounds fair but it just doesn't work out well enough. The movie doesn't always flow well because of this and the movie focuses on way too many characters that remain too shallow, a direct result of the fact that the movie tries to cover too much story and characters. Sure, most actors are a delight to watch in this movie and they probably also are one of the reasons why this movie still remains a perfectly good one to watch. But just think about it. Were the Ryan O'Neal, Laurence Olivier, Liv Ullmann roles, for instance, really necessary? They add nothing to the story and you might even say that their roles only work distracting. They and many others, play roles in the movie, that in any other normal movie would had been an 5 seconds role but however due to the fact that they are being portrayed by big-name actors, the roles are far too much extended and stretched out. This really is the biggest problem of the movie.
A result of this all is that the movie also remains a pretty shallow one. It's just a documentary like observation of the events which occurred and it fails to capture any emotion or show the true horrors of war.
The movie is however a good looking one. It's pretty obvious that not all the money was just spend on the cast. The settings are good and the movie was filmed in- or directly around the places at which the events of 'Operation Market Garden' also occurred in real life. It gives the movie a certain bit of extra and adds some realism. The movie becomes nowhere exactly spectacular but there are some well filmed battle sequences that don't really impress but are good and memorable enough.
The musical score by John Addison is very good and makes the movie also very recognizable, unfortunately it was the only good and memorable score by Addison, at least that I know of.
Richard Attenborough's movies always have both hits and misses and that goes for this movie more than any of his other's. This movie has many misses but still the positive things about the movie make this a, still good enough one, to watch.
It still is the ultimate movie to watch if you're interested in 'Operation Market Garden', however if you like a good WW II movie that is realistic and impressive to watch, this is not a movie for you.
This is a good little movie that heavily relies on its uneasy atmosphere. The movie is also greatly carried by its cast, both the adult as the children's.
The story is simple yet effective. The story perfectly sets up an uneasy atmosphere that is dark and sober. The story is unusual and original as well. The movie can perhaps be best described as a dark drama/thriller. The fact that the movie is both unusual and original is probably the reason why this movie unfortunately isn't any better known.
The character are perfectly portrayed in the movie and play a great role in the movie its story. The movie is especially carried by the children cast of the movie, who play the most significant and biggest role in the entire movie. The young characters are all both realistic as powerful. Every characters has its own strong personality and they are what make this movie always interesting and never boring to follow, even though the pace itself isn't always terribly high.
But the movie also has a good adult cast that unfortunately is perhaps a bit underused at times. Dirk Bogarde plays a great role in the movie but unfortunately his character is introduced at least 15 minutes too late in to the movie. Once his character is introduced in to the story the movie takes more form and becomes even more intriguing to follow. It was also great to see Yootha Joyce in the movie, who I only knew from the British comedy series "George and Mildred". She is a great actress and really gets to show her skills in this movie.
The movie handles some intriguing, original and uneasy themes and the movie handles all those themes on its own very special way. It makes the movie a both original as well as memorable movie to watch.
Definitely worth seeing, when you get the opportunity to.
