Among the best war films of all time

Rating: 8/10 (9 March 2011)

David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai" won the Best Picture Oscar for 1957 and is today revered as one of the best British/American productions of that, or any, era.
The story revolves around a battle of wills between a British colonel (Alec Guinness) and the commandant of a Japanese PoW camp (Sessue Hayakawa). The British PoWs are being forced to build a bridge over the river Kwai but, little do they know, a plan is already being formulated to blow it up. The story is compellingly told by screenwriters Michael Wilson & Carl Foreman but, unfortunately, they received no credit for their Oscar-winning script (based on Pierre Boulle's novel) due to the Hollywood blacklist.
The film's best performance belongs to Alec Guinness, so it's no surprise that he took home an Oscar. Sessue Hayakawa was also nominated for his surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of the film's main villain. As the requisite American hero, William Holden is outclassed by his peers but he still puts in a reliable performance. Meanwhile, James Donald & Jack Hawkins are standouts in support.
David Lean's Oscar-winning direction is impressively handled and the similarly honoured cinematography is routinely breathtaking. Malcolm Arnold's score also won an Oscar, though I admit that I found little remarkable about the music except, of course, for the immortal "Colonel Bogey March".
In the end, the film does have some imperfections but they are relatively minor ones. The movie doesn't really pick up steam until about an hour in but from that point on it's practically flawless. Therefore, I wouldn't hesitate to rank "The Bridge on the River Kwai" alongside the likes of "Apocalypse Now" & "Patton" as some of the best war movies of all time.