Brings up historical accuracy question, but has some truths

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2007)

By now, everyone has seen the History channel and knows there are flaws in the story. But are they major flaws or minor flaws? That said, there can be no doubt that this is a moving and great story. It centralizes on three characters mostly, and another three characters to a lesser degree. It loosely recounts the horrors of being a POW to the ruthless Japanese. The prisoners were forced to build a bridge under extremely harsh conditions. That statement doesn't begin to make a person feel the horror of the situation, and makes one feel as though it is whitewashed. This film, however, did little whitewashing. It begins with two prisoners explaining to the British officers that of all the hundreds of American and Australian prisoners who began the work, only these two were still alive. This pretty well explains it was horrible without going into details. The debate could go on about how far you make your actors go into portraying men who would be physically skeletons, but I feel that an audience can get the point without an actor forcing his body into severe hunger and malnutrition. Indeed, such an actor would be impossible to keep on his feet for retakes. The three main characters are the British colonel (Alec Guiness), a charismatic American rogue (William Holden) and the Japanese commander. A fourth player, Warren (Jack Hawknis) becomes a major catalyst with them, when he leads a small commando team to destroy the bridge. Most of the excitement comes from the commando team traipsing through a jungle. Two more characters serve as likable and identifiable observers (Joyce and the doctor). The story hops from the excitement of the jungle to the drama inside the prison camp. For most people, the jungle scenes will peak the most interest. But the drama in the camp is riveting for mature audiences. Guiness had the tougher role and was awarded the most acclaim, but Holden got the easier and most charismatic role, and gets the reward of being the most liked. There is a lot of sadness at the end. As a tragedy, this is a remarkable story. As a historical account, it doesn't deviate from the important things. It is probably accurate to compare real conditions in comparison, if not as completely true, with the major German camp movie STALAG 17 (also Holden) compared with BRIDGE OF THE RIVER KWAI. There is a line from the former movie in which Holden proclaims a reason not to escape the German camp is that you could get sent to Japan and wind up in a Japanese camp. Given a choice, an American POW would much prefer the harsh conditions of a German camp to the Hell of a Japanese camp.