Character Film Bogged Down to Anti-War Preachiness

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2018)

In the Golden Age of cinema, David Lean was dubbed as the king of epics. One of his more high-prolific entries into that category was the 1957 classic "The Bridge on the River Kwai". To me the top priority of this movie wasn't emphasized on World War II. The film centres around a strict, but well-defined British officer Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness), a lesser disciplined American soldier Commander Shears (William Holden) and a tyrant prison officer Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) who were placed in a Japanese prison camp where they were forced into labour to build the railway bridge over the River Kwai that connects from Bangkok and Rangoon. While this is done these three individuals try everything to co-exist with one another. You see very little of the war. The abysmal conditions of the prison camp is hard to swallow and cruelty that comes with the package is not for the faint of heart. This is where the best scenes take place, especially those who are into character-driven movies. This is where the performers truly exhibit themselves so that they can get Oscar recognition. And the harsher the conditions the better. Like a blessing in disguise for the viewers.
It's quite astounding that the characters come to life as we are invested in the main three characters (and a few supporting ones) become more fascinating as they develop. I was very pleased that Hayakawa was made into a great character, a lesser made film would've dismissed him into a one dimensional cartoon like villain. Lt. Col. Nicholson is a dedicated officer who's by the book persona gives him that edge of a true leader in his world. He will not budge unless Saito shows more respect towards the Geneva convention in which officers are forbidden to manual labour, in spite of his orders that prisoners in spite of their rank must build this bridge. But when Saito takes the request into consideration or else face ritual suicide, Nicholson goes through great lengths to humiliate the Japanese by upstaging and promoting how great the British Army is buy building a better bridge
In spite of how proud and dedicated he is towards the British Army, Nicholson is far from perfect, in fact his flaws are quite obvious. His role becomes that of the tragic hero in which even the good guys can get their comeuppance. His character blunder comes from the issue he was fighting against ends up taking over his life as his building of the monument becomes all that matters to him and what the purpose at to why this bridge is being constructed.
"Bridge on the River Kwai" works on various levels in terms of great pace, remarkable characters and well put together plot, there is still a major flaw that holds this movie to being a masterpiece. While doing everything in its power to make this war film not emphasizing too much on the war, the last fifteen minutes ends up becoming all about the war and the preachy cliches there are about how bad war is. If they would've kept up with the human drama, this movie could've been pure gold, not that is was overrated. The political sentiments just takes over in the end and when the final quote, "Madness, Madness" comes around after all the chaos has happened, it leaves a sout taste in your mouth.
Many reviewers have said that this movie has anti-war written all over the script and that the after effects of the war can cause even the sanest individual traumatized. No disrespect to the reviewers, but that is not the case. Up until the last 15 minutes it was all about men going out of their ways fighting through hard times during very complicated times. The war was used as a decoy to represent the setting of this film. and even if this film has the anti-war theme stamped all over, they should have kept it more hidden than blurted out in the end which was a cop-out to a potentially reasonable ending.
Sure I may be fixated on this flaw too much, but it's because I cared so much bout the movie and director David Lean got lazy and just rushed off the ending too fast making the ending way too inorganic. In spite of this flaw, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is a remarkable movie to enjoy and it still holds well as one of the best classic epic films with a great cinematic achievement in character driven movies.