A convincing portrait of war

Rating: 7/10 (19 August 2008)

'A Bridge Too Far' is the story of a British military disaster from the later stages of World War Two, made in 1977 (at sufficient distance from the war to enable a nuanced view of the conflict). In essence, it's a conventional war movie, made on a lavish scale and with an (over?) starry cast, e.g. Gene Hackman's turn as a Polish officer is not perhaps the most convincing performance of his career. More generally, there's little casting against type, either in terms of the actors on in terms of Hollywood racial clichés: the English upper class bear most of the guilt while heroic Scots and Americans are the lions led by donkeys. What is good about the movie is it's attempt to seriously detail the full course of a complex battle; and some of the set piece scenes (such as the parachute drops) are impressive for a film made before computer animation was available, although I found the score a little too directive. Overall, the movie is perhaps too fictionalised to work as documentary, but too broad in scope to satisfy in the way of the best fiction. But it convinces as a portrait of what this war must really have been like for those who had to fight it.