You won't be disappointed!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This movie had most of the makings for a decent war flick - but OH, for the film editing!!! Eeeegads!! The scene/shot sequence and tempo was horrific. God, what a mess! Really can't believe people think this is a good movie. The acting is really the only thing that keeps this movie from being a disaster!

No, the Americans didn't want a film that showed a huge failed operation involving American arms (they were still reeling from Vietnam), and 'A Bridge Too Far' found little favour in the States. Only in the UK did it recoup its considerable costs.This is the story of Arnhem, the moment in September 1944 when Montgomery was stung into a doomed attempt to capture the Rhine bridges because he was being made to look slow by George Patton, who was not, however, facing anything like the same opposition.Neither Patton, Monty or Eisenhower are represented in the story, and the officers being played by the all-star cast are not exactly household names, the relationships between them never clearly defined. In fact, the plot as a whole is quite hard to follow in the course of this overlong and over-repetitive screenplay.Best-known of the officers is Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde), commander of the Airborne Division, who is generally blamed for going into denial about enemy strength. He declares that the wehrmacht is down to schoolboys and pensioners, and when shown a picture of several tanks beside one of the bridges, he claims they're not operational. But neither Bogarde nor any of the others is able to carry conviction as a regular officer, who has spent his whole career deferring to higher authority. Sean Connery and Michael Caine in particular are unable to camouflage their rebel blood. More believable, at least, is Edward Fox as the sociable and popular Brian Horrocks ("Pack my dinner-jacket"), who gets a loud cheer as he delivers a briefing.Interestingly, the German officers are all shown speaking German, with no dubbing or sub-titles, clearly meant as a decisive step away from the German accented cod-English that filled-up all those cheap black-&-white war-films of the 50's. Yet the pre-title sequence is a needless history lesson, delivered in exactly that style, apparently by some female victim of war whose status is unexplained.

"A Bridge Too Far" reminds me of one of those Irwin Allen mega-epics of the 1970s. Like "The Towering Inferno" or "Earthquake", "A Bridge Too Far" is jam-packed full of celebrities and celebrity cameos...something that usually does not work very well. Similar films, such as "Midway", seemed to spend ALL the budget on stars and there was little left for anything else...such as a decent script or the limited and appropriate use of stock footage. So is this another overblown epic or is it worth seeing? After all, 90% of the budget must have been to pay these stars! Fortunately, while I was not in love with the film, I didn't hate it...and that makes it a whole lot better than the movies I just mentioned (particularly "Midway"...what a terrible film).The film is a very long (too long if you ask me) recreation of Operation Market Garden, a failed attempt by Allied troops to dislodge the Germans and take bridges in Holland. Again and again, you see troops being tossed into various fronts...with mostly expected results since you know ultimately the Germans won this battle and pushed off the offensive. It's competently made and the director used some creativity to make the battles seem more realistic (such as the use of fake Sherman tanks...as discussed in the IMDb trivia). My only reservations are the film's length, the odd casting of Gene Hackman (what WAS his accent?!) and the way the film seems to go out of its way to portray General Browning as a complete horse's butt...and I am not sure if this is reasonable or not. According to at least some folks, the General wasn't actually incompetent.

A Bridge Too Far is a war film obviously a product of 70's cinema, in that it takes a decidedly uncelebratory route in telling its story. The very fact that it focuses on a famous Allied military disaster is an immediate pointer. Set during the final stages of World War II in 1944, it finds the Allied command in over-confident mood on account of their recent advances on D-Day. The top brass devise a knock-out punch where troops will pierce through Holland from the air and from the ground, taking advantage of low demoralised German numbers. The key being the taking of several bridges, culminating with a crucial one in Arnhem. The problem is that some early warning signs are ignored, which report a much heavier German presence in the area, the operation is given the go ahead regardless only to discover that area is swarming with crack SS troops.Directed by Richard Attenborough, this is an example of a type of film that they simply cannot afford to make any more on account of its ludicrously high calibre ensemble cast. We have Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Anthony Hopkins, Edward Fox, Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, Liv Ullman, James Caan and Elliott Gould. It's an unbelievable set of actors to have at its disposal and the film does, for the most part, make good use of them. Not only this but it's visually a treat with beautiful photography and great on-location sets, particularly in Arnhem. The battle scenes were well recreated and it did overall give the feeling of a commendably balanced portrayal of events. This extends to the way that the Germans are depicted, where we have SS men shown in ways that didn't have them as utterly sadistic and evil as is usually the way. This overall measured approach is one that serves this material well in that this is pretty far from jingoistic stuff. It's a pretty doom-laden film in actual fact but I like the fact that it is unafraid to pull its punches and be like this. For this very reason, coupled with the great production values and direction, this remains one of the all-time great war movies for me.