One of Cinema's All-time Greatest Achievements

Rating: 9/10 (10 February 2017)

Wow this is still a powerful work. The Bridge on the River Kwai is David Lean's WW2 epic made several years before his masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. It's not on that level of perfection, but it's still a damned great movie. They don't make films like this anymore. I remember being shown this film in a movie appreciation segment by a teacher in elementary school. I then would watch it every chance I got as I grew older. Alec Guinness and William Holden give what may be their best performances. Younger people raised on fast-paced CGI hyper-edited ADHD movies would probably complain that this is boring. Their loss, and dead wrong. THIS is how films should be made. Take your time with location work and character development. There is one particular shot in the jungle where the commandos are hunting a stray Japanese solder. They startle hundreds of bats from sleep, and the bats fill the sky. The shadows of the bats flicker on the jungle below, making the search even more difficult due to the eye being drawn all around to the shadows flickering on the leaves. Brilliant scene. If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to watch it. "Madness."