Last of a kind

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2001)

People criticise ABTF because of the overload on stars - but thats one of the reasons I love it - one of the last films ever I think to have that huge blue chip group in one film: Bogarde, Caine, Connery, Edward Fox, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Kruger, Schell, Gould, Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Redford, Liv Ullmann, Denholm Elliott, together with a load more you'll recognise.
The escalation of star salaries makes this more or less impossible nowadays, and I guess that's a reason it's interesting. The film itself is well done with poignancy but not to an irritating degree.
The stars aren't reduced to cameos - many of them contrary to critics make a measurable contribution to the whole, and help to emphasise that war of the 1940s wasn't like today - without computers and effective communication noone had the heck what was going on in the middle of a battle. Deprived of working radios, these guys could be a mile away from each other and know nothing.
One of the closing scenes has the major allied leaders on a tower, watching with binoculars the battle a few miles away. It is a scene - never repeated in terms of the constellation on screen at the same time - that remains unforgettable for anyone interested in the history of actors of this century, and the pleasure they have individually shown millions: Bogarde, Caine, Edward Fox, Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford - All staring at Connery's guys marooned ahead.
For this scene alone, and for what it represents this film deserves significance. The message of the film is well conveyed through the humanity of its director Dicky Attenbrough.
I agree with most of the positive comments of others and appreciate the ambition of the film - like the operation it describes, it must have been a logistical nightmare to execute and I salute all those involved - one gets the feeling as a viewer of the scale of such an operation and the guts of all those involved. Compare it with the equally ambitious but incredibly flawed Pearl Harbour - well don't - I know which film I'd rather spend $200m on.