Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Movie Review: " A Bridge Too Far" (1977)This film releases just weeks after the blazing "Star Wars" (1977) and presenting the other side of film-making at the Hollywood-changing period of the 1970s. Completely filled with acting stars from Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins and many more to deliver solid performances for marketable WW2-movie directed Richard Attenborough (1923-2014), feasting on pure realism, especially in the airborne parachutes scenes, to show war what it actually is; a mobilization of thousands of people, the suffering of millions, under the command of the few, who in the end asks themselves what was it all been made for. If you need a calming piece of cinema with some well-researched historic materials on war campaigning, this is the movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Richard Attenborough's extensive war epic A Bridge Too Far shows the numerous attempts the Allies made to capture German occupied bridges in the Netherlands in WWII. To go into detail about every plot line would be too extensive, but this is a very heavy, dramatic, tense film with lots of featured battles and missions.While other war movies were rewarded with Oscar nominations or wins, this film was completely ignored during the awards season. The direction and production values were impeccable, and with an all-star cast to draw audience appeal, I have no idea why the film wasn't nominated for anything. It's an unforgettable film, with Michael Caine, Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde, Maximilian Schell, Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neal, Liv Ullmann, Denholm Elliott, and Elliott Gould making up the all-star cast.In particular, Sean Connery's and Robert Redford's performances stand out in my memory. Yes, everyone gives their all in the movie, but the two mentioned actors put a great deal of emotion into scenes where the script didn't give them much to work with. Sean Connery is the man who hears the title line, "I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far," spoken, and his reaction is multi-layered and perfect. Robert Redford is given the line, "Half my men are killed, and you're just gonna stop and drink tea?" which could have sounded corny and awful, but he turns it into something worthy of an Oscar clip.In lots of war movies, there are a couple of lead characters who survive the entire film, and one person who "buys the farm" and doesn't make it home. A Bridge Too Far isn't the typical war film of earlier decades; it's more similar to Saving Private Ryan or Glory. There are dozens upon dozens of characters, and lots of people die. Be prepared. This is a very tense movie, and sometimes it's difficult to watch. Robert Redford is given a mission to take his men across the water, and the Germans start shooting at them from the bridge they're heading toward. They can't shoot back because they need to use all their strength to keep rowing to safety. Redford and his soldiers start repeating "Hail Mary, full of Grace" over and over, knowing at any second they could be killed mid-prayer. It's very upsetting to watch, but I wanted to describe it so you know what you're getting into. If you like those types of movies, you'll find a gem in A Bridge Too Far.

This is one of my all-time favourite war epics. Its not just a movie it deserves the title 'Epic'.An all star cast that works very well together. Excellent production values. Where the heck did they get ALL that equipment from? Extraordinary. A script that never flags, is always consistent, relevant, to the point and yet very humorous where it matters. It bears repeated watching. I'd place it alongside classics like 'The Longest Day', without any problem. There are probably historical inaccuracies to do with chronologies or issues not mentioned below, but I'm not bothered by them. If I wanted abs. historical accuracy I'd watch a documentary, not a movie.I don't know if the following will be regarded as a spoiler so I'll put a warning just in case: There is to my mind only one problem with it, and this is no fault of the producers or the technical staff. It can't help being made in 1977. Unfortunately being filmed for the most part in urban settings, all those settings (architecture, clothing/hairstyles etc.) are contemporary to 1977, not to 1944. I've only just noticed it watching it now. It reminds of a similar problem with Anzio the movie with Robert Michum about the landings in Italy. The end scene of that film was entirely 1960s/70s. Spoilt the effect. But with 'A Bridge...', what could they do? It would have made an already vastly expensive undertaking costly beyond anyone's resources to have got everyone, all the Dutch civilians, to be kitted out in 1944 styles. And to build original looking sets for all the scenes. The expense would have been impossibly outrageous (before CG might have done the job). 1977 was probably the last time they could make an epic of WW2 with equipment available as originals or mock-ups. So, with that caveat, I give it a 9. It really deserves 10, but I think 9 says it all anyhow.

A Bridge Too Far falls under its own weight in many ways with a lot of distracting cameos and an overly bombastic score. Also, it stumbles right out of the gate with a completely historically inaccurate and oversimplified narration that certainly angered any veterans of the Eastern, Italian, or African Fronts by erroneously claiming that up until D-Day the Germans were winning the war. Much of the rest of the writing falters under banalities and clichés, with some real life historical figures such as British General Browning and German Field Marshall Model portrayed as utterly incompetent (winning The Battle of Arhhem only because of luck and British hubris rather than due to his own ability). As usual for most old-fashioned war movies, the Germans are portrayed as largely heartless and often doltish with the Americans heroic, the British pompous, and the Poles and Dutch as noble victims of their circumstances.However, the film has a lot going for it that World War II films up to that point hadn't done. The battle scenes manage to attain a level of chaos, brutality, and realism unmatched for another 20 years. In addition to showcasing a lot of fairly accurate equipment, the action is edited well with great sound design (aside from those squeaky "beep" ricochets) and pyrotechnics. The scene where XXX Corp. first encounters the German lines with its devastating artillery barrage and then stumbling into an ambush ranks among my favorite war scenes, accurately portraying the sheer wide-scale savagery and how quickly great plans can fall apart.As usual for "big" movies of the time, there really isn't a plot or character arcs because of just how many overlapping stories and vignettes there are. A few bigger stars like James Caan, Robert Redford, and Elliot Gould get only 2 scenes - one small one to introduce their character and one larger one in which they do something memorable to service the action, usually calling back to something their character said in their introduction as though each one had some vaguely ironic prescient ability. Some of the stunt-casting actually makes the film worse, such as Gene Hackman doing his best but completely failing to fool anyone into believing he's Polish.History buffs, such as myself, will get a big kick though out of the straightforwardness of the presentation of Operation Market Garden. It's interesting even to see the generals posit over maps and see their plans come to fruition inter-cut with the small stories of the regular people on the ground. The operation certainly deserved a big picture to tell its story and with impressively mounted spectacle in the age before CGI and visual effects. The larger screen you watch it on and the more interested in WW2 history you are, the more impressed you'll be.