Christy by Request — A Bridge Too Far

• 11 Mar 2018
• Posted by Christy
•   Christy by Request , Reviews

Sean Connery. Gene Hackman. Anthony Hopkins. Michael Caine. Ryan O’Neal. James Caan. Laurence Olivier. Elliott Gould. Robert Redford. And — eventually — Liv Ullmann.

It would seem impossible to go wrong with such an incredible, all-star cast — which makes “A Bridge Too Far” such a frustrating misfire (no pun intended).

This 1977 World War II drama is the latest in my “Christy by Request” review series. It’s the suggestion of @stephenmalovski, a Twitter follower of mine from Macedonia, who recommended it for its suspense and historical accuracy. He even compared it to “Dunkirk,” one of my favorite movies of 2017. Sure, it’s three hours long. But I was not going to be daunted. That’s the movie title Nicolas had selected randomly — and I had to admit, I’d never seen it before — so that’s what I was going to watch.

The late, great actor and director Richard Attenborough (“Gandhi,” “Cry Freedom”) tells the story of Operation Market Garden, a failed Allied attempt to capture a series of bridges connecting Germany and the Netherlands in September 1944. The most important of these is in the small, Dutch town of Arnhem. The aforementioned superstars play the military leaders from various countries in charge of carrying out this plan, which requires thousands of troops and relies on precise timing.

“All we need now are three days of clear skies,” British Lt. Gen. Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde) assures his colleagues, coolly and confidently. “Only the weather can stop us now.” But the men speak amongst themselves of their doubts about the mission, building an early tension.

Unfortunately, that tension slowly dissipates as the film drags on and on, just as it should be steadily increasing. Attenborough’s film is a big, old-fashioned war epic — earnest, straightforward and solidly made, with hundreds of extras, impressive fleets of military aircraft and a rousing score. But the script from the usually great William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men” “The Princess Bride”), based on Cornelius Ryan’s book, is simultaneously voluminous and superficial, offering little for the film’s staggeringly accomplished cast to work with beyond thin types.

Caine, as Lt. Col. J.O.E. Vandeleur of the Irish Guards, is jovial and wisecracking. Hopkins, as British Lt. Col. John Frost, glibly asks whether his golf clubs are packed before everyone heads out. Americans like Caan and Gould simply swagger — except for O’Neal, who’s annoyingly whiny. Hackman is among those who gets it the worst of all: As Polish Major Gen. Stanislaw Sosabowski, he literally makes a Polish joke the first time we see him.

Once all these characters are introduced, they’re amassed in a giant room with their troops to receive their assignments.

“Gentlemen, this is a story you’ll tell your grandchildren — and mightily bored they’ll be,” British Lt. Gen. Horrocks (Edward Fox) says with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. But he could have been talking about the movie as a whole.

Technically, “A Bridge Too Far” is impressive, especially in its sound design. The noisy thrum of planes overhead as Dutch villagers try to enjoy a peaceful Sunday morning church service provides an eerie feeling of dread. Later, in the movie’s many battle scenes, Attenborough and his team overwhelm us with gunfire, explosions and screams of pain, all of them visceral.

He vividly conveys the chaos and fog of war — the death and destruction — in individual, scattered scenes without much driving momentum. Fire, smoke, confusion and panic are all part of a massive battle just one hour in — and the bombs just keep on coming. Conversely, the ethereal calm of paratroopers dropping over Holland has an unexpected beauty about it, like thousands of jellyfish floating through cloudy skies. There’s a rhythm to the clatter as they jump, one by one, into the unknown.

But “A Bridge Too Far” eventually ends up feeling repetitive and overlong as it covers the same territory over and over.  Things do pick up, though, when Robert Redford shows up as one of the last pieces of the puzzle about two hours in as American Maj. Julian Cook, just because he’s so damn charismatic. He’s also the central figure in one of the film’s truly tense later scenes, a frantic and ill-fated river crossing. (Redford’s introduction also provides the brief but amusing sight of a pre-“Cheers” John Ratzenberger, who gets exactly one line: “Major,” he asks Redford, “we got any more information on those boats?”)

There’s also woefully little of the legendary Olivier and Ullmann, who are relegated to one of the least developed subplots. He’s a Dutch doctor; she’s a mother who agrees to open up her spacious home as a makeshift hospital for the countless wounded. (The luminous Ullmann also is the only woman with any significant speaking part.)

But these two members of acting royalty do figure prominently in the film’s final moments, as well as its last shot, which is striking. By the end, they’re clearly spent. And so are we.