One Word Sums Up David Lean's Masterful Epic - "Madness"!

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2015)

David Lean's epic The Bridge on the River Kwai is a formidable arsenal, a slickly calculated piece of entertainment, an angry razz at the thing called war, a despairing salute to the men war makes and above all, an ironic masterpiece.
Despite being held in a Japanese POW camp in Burma, Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) still runs his regiment by the military textbook. However, Nicholson meets his match in the domineering prison commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), and the two find themselves on a collision course when Saito gets orders to build a railroad bridge vital to Japan's war effort, over the murky river Kwai. Initially, the English balk. But later, to Saito's utter confusion, Nicholson decides to uphold British military traditions with his men and uses the construction of the bridge to prove the mettle of the British soldiers, seeing it as an exercise in keeping up their morale. While the British see such a stance as nothing short of collaboration, the stiff upper lipped officer sees it as a matter of pride. Meanwhile, American Navy man Shears (William Holden) miraculously escapes from Saito's camp, only to be conscripted to return and destroy the bridge the inmates are building. While clearly a suicide mission, he agrees, hoping that Nicholson and his men won't somehow stall the raid. The daring mission is discovered, moments before fulfillment, by Nicholson, now unbalanced by the "glory" of his bridge-building feat, which in turn leads to an excruciatingly tense climax.
The Bridge on the River Kwai carries us through a particularly rough reality - that sometimes, the line between cooperation and collusion is razor thin. The best parts of the movie concentrate on this dilemma, delivered by David Lean in a way that makes even the most mundane concept seem superlative. He displays an artistic and aesthetic acumen that marries material to meaning in a way that is almost impossible to copy. He also guides his performers through a series of fine portrayals. Holden is easy and credible in a role that is the pivot point of the story while Hayakawa is solidly impressive as the despotic Colonel Saito, limning him as an admixture of cruelty and correctness born out of a lifetime of training. But the film unquestionably belongs to Guinness. He etches an unforgettable portrait of the typical British army officer, strict, didactic and serene in his adherence to the book. It's a performance of tremendous power and dignity.
What eventually elevates it to the rank of an artistic triumph is the engrossing entertainment it purveys. Suffice it to say, it's a masterpiece. And an epic one at that!