Classic Lean, Didactic ending weakens film

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2018)

Throughout most of the film's run time this is a highly engaging and philosophically compelling war epic. Lean's masterful eye is evident throughout the film and the film's scope is what one has come to expect from Lean. The vivid colors are contrasted with the British stiff upper lip. The bridge is treated almost as totem. The film movies and feels much short than the 3 hour run.
Best of all Guinness' Col. Nicholson is a comic-tragic figure of propriety at the expense everything else. It is clear that his truly does miss the forests from the trees. Guinness is very engaging and he does not lean into the more comedic elements of the character; it might be his best role. All in all this is very stirring epic until the very end.
Unfortunately, the script's detached tone and commitment to not judge any of its character falters at the end. Nicholson's fate as well as the Clipton's repeated line of "Madness" hammers the point of the absurdity of war far to hard. The building of a proper bridge already made that clear; we do not need a sympathetic character to spell that out for us. It greatly mars the final film.
The ending is a let down for what had come before on every level; even Donald's reading of "Madness" is off putting. Fortunately what comes before is masterful. Good film. It could have been great.