Review – A Bridge Too Far

And at least an hour too long to boot. Like The Longest Day, this is one of those ensemble war epics that feature just about every actor in Hollywood in the appropriate age bracket (in fact, at least one or two of these folks are veterans of the aforementioned picture). Unlike D-Day, however, here we have a tale with a much sadder ending. Rather than emphasizing the heroic nature of the Allied assault on Germany’s Fortress Europe, the main idea this time around is that the airborne attack on Holland in 1944 was at best poorly planned and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of a lot of men. So sing “war is hell” rather than “dulce et decorum est.” Even as long as the movie is, we never really seem to get enough of any one particular story to make the characters fully fleshed-out and sympathetic. Indeed, several of the many subplots seem almost beside the point. Still, if you like this approach to storytelling then you should walk away happy. This is a fine, well-made example of the type. Mildly amusing