A Bridge Too Far - One of the best accounts of a military failure ever

 ‘A Bridge Too Far’ was never a blistering success at the box office when it was originally released in 1977.  People felt that World War II films were a little ‘old hat’ by then, so there wasn’t as much interest in it as there possible could have been if it was released a couple of decades earlier.

Plus, when the history textbooks are studied, you hear a lot about the D-Day landings, the Battle of Britain and so forth.  However, ‘Operation Market-Garden’ rarely gets a mention.  It was an audacious plan by the Allies to take four bridges in only a few days time in the middle of German-held Europe, thus ensuring a vital route of supplies is maintained to the Allied forces fighting on the frontline.

A plan of this magnitude and intricacy could only be done justice on an epic scale.  And, to the film’s credit, it does just that.  It has a stellar ensemble cast, including such greats as Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Caine, all of which play different Allied military personnel  at various points of the mission.

Without wishing to give too much away, perhaps one aspect of the film’s success may be down to the fact that the ‘goodies’ don’t necessarily win.  It’s unlikely that most of us would appreciate a World War II film where the Germans come out on top, however, history was not kind to Operation Market-Garden.  It went ahead and, in one Allied General’s own words “Was over 90% successful.” Unfortunately, a catalogue of errors – some manmade and others beyond the Allies’ control – contributed to it being labelled one of the biggest mission failures of the latter half of the war.

If you like your war films, you should love this.  It’s big, powerful and doesn’t pull many punches when it shows the horror of what soldiers on all sides went through.  You need to be okay with ensemble casts.  There could probably be a film made about every character featured in this film.  But there isn’t enough time for that, so we do have to sacrifice a little character development in favour of condensing the mission down into a watchable viewing.

‘Saving Private Ryan’ may have a better budget, but A Bridge Too Far has a raw, epic feel that really makes it come across like a history lesson which more battles and stars.

9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather