Verdict
Summary
Richard Attenborough directed this sprawling picture, and while it does have some impressive scenes such as the parachuting hundreds with some first-person cinematography, it also fumbles a bit in the telling and it ends on such an oddly ambiguous note.
Kino Lorber’s brand new 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray edition of A Bridge Too Far comes in a crystal clear presentation from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. If you’re looking for the best presentation possible of this one, look no further. It comes with two audio commentaries – one from two historians, and one from William Goldman and crewmembers. There’s also a trailer and a slipcover.
Plot:
The Allies launch a full-scale assault on the Third Reich in 1944, leading to disaster.
Review:
1944: The Third Reich’s morale has never been lower after the Normandy Invasion, and the Allies believe they can end the war before Christmas with an all-out assault on the ground in Germany. Plans are hastily concocted within a week, with a meeting of generals (seeing Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, and Ryan O’Neal in the same scene as generals is fun) divvying up sections of the ground where they’ll invade by way of dropping hundreds of men from the sky in parachutes, and ground commanders (Edwards Fox, Michael Caine, and Anthony Hopkins get those privileges) send their troops out to gain ground by taking control of several key bridges, but after the assault goes over schedule, ammunition runs dangerously low and human losses are far too great to keep advancing (James Caan and Robert Redford play foot soldiers). The Allies overestimate their ability to win the war on a time crunch by “a bridge too far.”
A three hour trek through planning scenes, soldier-rousing speeches, long, drawn-out scenes of briefly getting to know peripheral characters before they get gunned down (even an old grandma gets slaughtered in one scene), and lots of supporting stars sprinkled throughout like salt and pepper to varying effect (Hackman is miscast as a Polish general, for example) make A Bridge Too Far just too laborious and open-ended to be completely satisfying as one of the great or even really good war movies ever made, but it certainly thinks it’s cracked up to be with its amazing cast and script by William Goldman. Richard Attenborough directed this sprawling picture, and while it does have some impressive scenes such as the parachuting hundreds with some first-person cinematography, it also fumbles a bit in the telling and it ends on such an oddly ambiguous note.
Kino Lorber’s brand new 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray edition of A Bridge Too Far comes in a crystal clear presentation from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. If you’re looking for the best presentation possible of this one, look no further. It comes with two audio commentaries – one from two historians, and one from William Goldman and crewmembers. There’s also a trailer and a slipcover.
