A Bridge Too Far: Review

 

Another addition to my old war movie review habit began the other night. I sat down to A Bridge Too Far.

I’ve been a fan of war movies since I was a kid but I always tend to view the same ones instead of looking at different ones. I head right for the old favorites. I’d wanted to see Bridge for some time but kept missing it on the replays. Thankfully Netflix has been buying up a lot of old movies from comedy to war so I caught a glimpse on the scroll. If you have Netflix you know what the scroll is all about. It means spending more time mashing the down button on the remote and hoping some gem catches your eye. It rarely does. Last night though I felt Hitler needed another kick in the teeth.

It was made in 1977 so “old” is kind of a relative term. I expected a 1960s era movie for some reason. The first thing I noticed is the star studded cast: Sean Connery, Michael Cain, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, James Caan, Robert Redford, Ryan O’Neal. The acting is first rate from the start as expected. I’ve mentioned it before in my reviews but I always notice how the older films start with the 20,000 foot view and zoom in from there. Not literally of course but they set the stage for the audience who might be unaware of the historical details of the film. Lot's of maps and overviews of the terrain and mission. Quotable lines about the dangers of hubris on the battlefield.

This one is about the second offensive of the World War II by the Allies called Market Garden. It’s the second offensive since the Normandy beach anyway.

Briefly, Market Garden was an attempt to secure key positions in the Netherlands and hold bridges for the Allies--the ultimate goal being to move on to Berlin. The Nazi were in place too securely and the effort proved a disaster. Paratroopers and gliders landed 8 miles away from their destination and had to walk the rest of way getting slaughtered in the process. A German Panzer division held firm at Arnhem and wiped out the Allied opposition. Radios didn’t work in the heavily wooded area causing supply drops to land in the German area. Fog prevented a battalion of paratroopers up to 3 days, too late to be much help. None of the planners thought they'd face much resistance.

The operation was too aggressive and cost over 18,000 men on the Allied side. The film shows the plan and sets the action in motion. It’s a little easy to get lost on exactly which group is in which part of the country, where is the 101^st Airborne again? Why did it take XXX corps so long to jump? Which group is getting shelled by Panzers? I loved the river crossing scene. Robert Redford leads a company (82nd Airborne) across a river in collapsible boats. They row with their rifle butts until the artillery knocks out about half of them in the water. The rest make an attempt to take and hold the bridge but they have to retreat, unable to take the town. 

War movies have a tendency to make the war, or even all war, about one thing. There is one particular confusing line from Gene Hackman (who Polish General Sosabowski) about ‘when men decide to play war games everyone loses’. It’s meant to sum up the war but ends up sounding like it belongs in a completely different film. It felt like a Ken Burns war documentary for a few minutes at the end, no larger purpose just misery and death.

 World War II was about stopping an evil regime from slaughtering half the world and subjugating the rest. Some conflicts you could make a case that power politics ruined everyone’s life. But the case for defending the world against Hitler in Europe and Hirohito in Asia was self-evident. Besides, the British tried to appease the Fuhrer with give-aways in Austria and Czechoslovakia.  Right after that he invaded Poland.

 I might be reading too much into it, but a quote like that at the end of movie signifying a ‘wrap up’ is grossly misleading. The film drives the history pretty straight but gets drunk at the end and veers into a ditch.

The last shot is of an old man and a women with young children pushing a cart with their belongings away from a burned out shell of home. It’s a poignant reminder of who is left when war has taken the lives of so many fathers and sons. A Bridge Too Far is a thorough retelling of Market Garden through a few key players and their mistakes. Although it’s a little uneven in message it’s worth a watch.