Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

user-415-133374 "A Bridge Too Far" is an excellent war film and the template for which all other Second World War epics should be compared. The history is excellent, the acting extraordinary, and the film tells in a clear and concise manner what was otherwise a very complicated combined ground and airborne military campaign.With that said, there are a few notable flaws in the film. First and foremost...the miscasting of Gene Hackman. In the film, Hackman portrays the Polish general Stanislaw Sosabowski. Hackman does his best, but the acting simply doesn't work. Aside from a poorly done Polish accent, Hackman does not portray well (although he tries) the sheer dejection that Sosabowski must have experienced being sidelined by Allied generals who thought Poles were of little use in military operations. Add to it, this film for Hackman was stuck right in between "The French Connection" and "Superman". It is a totally alien character for Hackman to be playing and it shows.Second, we have what is generally referred to as the "innocence of the SS". The late 1970s were a very interesting time for Germany and its memories of World War II. A lot of the Waffen-SS veterans were attempting to gain government recognition for military pensions and there was an overall movement building, on both sides of the Atlantic, that Waffen-SS soldiers were simply front line troops who did their duty, separate from the atrocities of the Holocaust. There were certainly Waffen-SS members who were not criminals, however "A Bridge Too Far" portrays the Waffen-SS as an honorable fighting force which is respected by the British. Nothing could be further from the truth, in particular case of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps (figured prominently in the movie) which was deeply entrenched in war crimes and had commanded some divisions, especially on the eastern front, which had committed numerous atrocities. The 10th SS division Frundsberg, to be fair, was one of the few SS divisions which was not involved in any significant war crimes; however, the division commander Heinz Harmel asked his name not be used in the film, most likely since memories of what the SS truly stood for still lingered, even thirty years after the war.Overall, "A Bridge Too Far" is an excellent film and highly recommended for any aspiring historian of the Second World War.

phil allen The annoying 'triumphal' American-sounding music theme throughout the film is the worst sort of corn. Worse still are the numbing vignettes of endless delay, relieved by fire exchanges both big and brief. This is supposed to be a depiction of war as it is, with the jolly putdowns, and days on empty, but it doesn't entertain. And Ryan O'Neal a general? It lumps along like a tank with a missing track.I will say that the shots of men getting hit and the instant appearance of blood and flesh was very believable and well done.

HotToastyRag 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.

Michael A. Martinez 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.