On a whim, I rented A Bridge Too Far, the story of Operation
Market Garden, or Monty's Attempt at a D-Day. I remember it being
thoroughly panned when it came out ("A Bridge Too Long")
and I know I watched parts of it a few years later when it came
out on TV. But I had never watched the whole film at a sitting.
My son has been much interested in WWII lately, so I picked it up.
I was pleasantly surprised.
The movie was cast with almost every major male star or even
superstar of the 70s--Redford, Connery, O'Neal, Caan, Hackman,
Caine, Gould--as well as major international actors--Anthony
Hopkins, Hardy Kruger, Maximilian Schell, Edward Fox, Lawrence
Olivier, Dirk Bogard, Liv Ullman.
At the time, this must have overburdened the film something
awful--much as seeing Penn, Harrelson, Clooney, Travolta, Cusack,
Nolte et. al. was just too much in Thin Red Line. But 20 years
later, the top-heavy quality isn't there anymore--the ones that
are still considered major stars had a lousy 80s to tarnish their
aura and a few of them dropped off the map for a long time and
never regained their previous standing.
As a result, the glamour has worn off, and you are left with
one happy truth--this group of seventies movie stars were good at
their craft. No breast-beating, no "This Is My Oscar Moment"
speeches, no real egos in sight.
There isn't a really bad performance in the bunch, although I
could have done without Hackman as the Polish general, and O'Neal
never quite leaves his pretty boy image behind.
The screenplay, by William Goldman, is tight, dry, and note
perfect, with nicely tuned humor. The length comes not from
extraneous speechifying, but a detailed and precise telling of a
complicated tale. The movie is accurate, apparently faithful to
the Cornelius Ryan book it was based on, and places the blame
with a fair hand. Attenborough never was an innovative or
interesting filmmaker, and he's always been dull--but his ability
to tell a story is his major strength, and it is used to
advantage here.
There aren't too many moments that stand out from the others,
but the sequence of the C47s with their gliders taking off is
impressive, as is the drop sequence--pre-CGI, this was done with
the real thing, and must have cost a fortune.
I very much enjoyed the moment when Anthony Hopkins, as John
Frost, is asked by the Germans if he'd like to discuss a
surrender. Hopkins, surrounded on all sides by the enemy, out of
ammunition, a third of his troops seriously wounded, is
unyielding, so his adjutant responds, politely, "Sorry, we
really don't have any facilities here to take you all prisoner,
so we can't accept your surrender."
But by far the best sequence is Redford's turn as Julian Cook.
Forced to cross a river in daylight and take a bridge against
significant odds, he is blessed with men who'll do anything for
him and one incredible moment of good luck. This entire segment
is excellent; cinematography, editing, script, and performance
all work in tandem to elevate the movie momentarily from
ordinary, stodgy storytelling to damn good war film. Redford is
as good as I've ever seen him, and two or three times as good as
normal.
If you haven't seen it, get the DVD or widescreen video
version when you've got a few hours to kill and want background
noise. You might get drawn into it in spite of yourself--and if
you don't, then just hang tight for the Redford sequence.
One note about the movie's accuracy:
One character actively warns against the campaign for all the
right reasons. He is named "Major Fuller" in the movie,
but he was really Brian Urquhart, later knighted for an
accomplished UN career.
I couldn't figure out why they'd changed his name, given he is
the one person who was well-known outside the WW II reference. I
found a review that mentioned the reason: Sean Connery's
character was also named Urquhart, and there was a fear that we'd
all be terribly confused by two instances of such an unusual name
(by American standards).
Sigh.
