Ridiculous World War II drama.

Rating: 4/10 (29 December 2003)

This silly tripe is about a failed Allied attempt to seize the bridge at Arnhem during the fall of 1944. If successful, it would have opened up an invasion of the Ruhr Valley in Germany and ended the war earlier.
Made during the mid-Seventies, this film reflects the anti-war sentiment of the time. The generals are depicted as inept and cowardly, the Allied armies disorganized for the most part.
It does reach back to the gung-ho war pictures of the John Wayne era in an attempt to pump some bravado into the action, but the dialogue is so ludicrous and the characters so transparent that it all falls flat. The scenes with Anthony Hopkins are painful to watch, and can anyone believe Robert Redford as an Army major who says "please" when rallying his troops?
William Goldman has written some excellent scripts, but this one was just terrible. And who knows what director Richard Attenborough was trying to say. Maybe his cameo as a lunatic in the woods razzing the British Army was the hidden message.