A Bridge Too Far

Connery, Hopkins, Redford, Caine, Hackman, Caan, Gould, Ullmann, Olivier and Edward Fox. Acceptable.

What's going on?! Who's that?! Where are they?!

The all-star cast performs well and the true story is good. Like most star filled movies, it lacks some focus.

A couple of good scenes and decent performances, but way too drawn-out. Also, it may have been just me but I had to read up on Operation Market Garden afterwards to understand what I just saw.

My god, the casting here. Just incredible.

Stellar cast, huge panoramic cinematography and battle scenes. Moving and touching in parts. Great film of its type

A big epic with a big star cast and big scope, but it lacks real suspense and emotion.

I don't like Attenborough much, he might be suffering from illusions of grandeur. But the scale he takes epic to, can only be matched by early Hollywood or European movies. Cast and actor direction are the movies other highs.

"Now a staple of Bank Holiday Mondays (which is in itself a perverse sort of compliment), this sprawling epic rewards patience with an emotional pay-off and non-triumphant ending that reminds us all too starkly of the sacrifices made during war."

It took Richard Attenborough a cast of 14 stars and a huge for these times budget of 22mil. to make this war epic. And that just shows how important good narrative for the movies is. It doesn't glorify war, it isn't biased, parachuting scenes are one of the most impressive moments in the war movies. But in the end, looking at the bunch of stiff-upper lips fighting a battle we know they won't win for three hours is just boring. Awesome recreation of grand war campaign, but an average movie.

I was happy with just Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, and Anthony Hopkins. You didn't need to throw in Liv Ullmann at the end as well. The cast is indeed excellent, but the movie is, like the campaign itself, stretched far too thin. None of the characters or individual sections of the battle are sufficiently developed. We bounce around sporadically from character to character, scene to scene, without any focus or point. Like most war movies, it is not particularly engaging or insightful.

One of the best war movies ever with an all star cast of the likes of Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Caine

Impressive, massive production effort, but all is spent to little avail. Overall impression is that the director has more than he can handle, the storytelling strategy just doesn't work, and production muscle can't save the day. Funny it seems to mirror the mission it depicts. A war epic too far.

A so-so war film with a strong cast to ignore. I'll have to rewatch this because I got lost at what was going on on my first time viewing.

My favorite WAR movie !!!

Entertaining, probably more so for WWII buffs. Great acting and action scenes. It felt like something was lacking though...

Excellent entry in the all-star cast war movie genre; aided by a fine cast (with standouts Hopkins, Bogarde and Connery, though Gould feels out of place and Ullmann and Olivier's characters are given little to do) and Attenborough's fine chops as an epic film director coming to the fore in a series of well realised action scenes, combining with effective character cameos. Surprisingly downbeat, even nihilistic at times, but balanced with a very British sense of humour.

Maybe too starstudded....

In trying to stuff every single actor into this, Attenborough forgot to give weight to any particular storyline or character. Far too dispersed to be engaging and nothing really came together - were Connery and Hopkins supposed to be in the same town? I don't know and didn't really care. Hackman's accent is horrible.

So many stars its almost distracting. Still an entertaining look at the massive undertaking and ultimate failure that was Market Garden.

A big epic movie stuffed to the brim with an all star cast. The size and scope of this film is more impressive the the actual story itself. The film has a very poppy score which I found distracting. Most of the cast isn't given that much to do but it doesn't really matter since there was so much going on. The film is way too long for its own good which made the film seem bloated and the film tended to drag especially during the middle portion...

This was based on a true story, the fisaco that Montgomery dubbed 'Market Garden'. It's a fair rendition of of that terribly planned & executed WWII offensive. After the failure of this offensive, Montgomery's role in WWII was greatly diminished.

A Bridge Too Far is an epic war movie with a huge cast you would never see elsewhere. And yes, it's a passionate, technically, true cinematic masterwork with breathtaking shots (eg. parachute scenes). But, in a way, it feels like a documentary as a result of ignoring any kind of dramatization. So soldiers are portrayed as pawns, just like in real life. I admit this is nothing to criticize but personally, the approach of the movie is just not my cup of tea, I guess.

Complex, a lot of good acting, but not a very riveting tale, and too damn long.

Sensational cast. However there are better war flicks out there but didn't disappoint.

The focus of this film is the bureaucracy of war. The main character Britain's General Montgomery never appears in the film yet his absentee decisions drive the action. Supported by layers of "yes" men, intelligence and risk assessment reports are modified so as to "not rock the boat. Ultimately men are wasted and the plan fails - but hugely heroic actions more than carry the story. Unfortunately as a historical narrative the action takes place in several locations - requiring more attention

Aside from "Grand Illusion" and maybe "Apocalypse Now" (and of course, "Tropic Thunder"), pretty much every war movie I can think of is just dumb, and this is no exception. They're like watching football games (which are even dumber in my book)... a lot of maneuvering punctuated by bouts of barbaric violence. Notably lacking is any actual human drama, because no one is interacting the way humans generally do.

falls short on many levels but the stellar cast and hyperrealistic war scenes saves it...

I have a fondness for Operation Market-Garden and the greatness of its scale. I studied it for a school project and have very strong family ties to the area. So I think it is these feelings that bump up the score a bit, rather than the merits of the film itself, which is a rather ordinary war film. However, it's somewhat a bonus to have so many big names in this one.

Good but maybe too many famous people. Also Hackman as a Polish soldier? Really? I mean they had the German soldiers actually speaking German they could have fixed that. The shots in this film are pretty stunning though.

Well made with some truly epic scenes in terms of spectacle and scale, but it doesn't attempt to hide the inevitable conclusion and fails to create enough drama on the way to this endpoint for the stellar cast to exploit.

Wildly ambitious, in scope if not in visual style, it can feel a bit over-stuffed. There might be just too much going on, it tries to cover so much ground that it can't help but come up a bit short, and in trying to tell all the stories it can't help but seem unfocused and even a bit indulgent, especially at almost three hours. Then again, Market Garden wasn't much different, was it? Ambitious plan which tried too much and couldn't possibly pull it off.

Nice sense of scale at times, but ultimately this overlong war flick drags horribly. The stories of the three groups are not cohesive enough, and not enough is done to differentiate them. Many of the characters and locations are rather generic and indistinguishable from each other so it's often unclear who is doing what, why and where. Also there is some really, really stupid writing, particularly the 10-second arrest which is basically just idiotic pandering. Somewhat disappointing film.

Quite good, historically inaccurate and hard to follow disparate elements

Massive props to these guys for filming on location.

Classic film

An utterly incredible epic: one of the best WWII films ever made.

An overreaching epic war movie that tells one too many incomplete stories.

Richard Attenborough's ''A Bridge Too Far'' is a grandiose war film featuring one movie star after another. All time top WW2 movie. Top movie score by composer John Addison.

Epic WW2 movie at its finest. An incredible ensemble cast of big names fill out this movie. With good action, dialogue, and emotion.

Great classic war movie--lots of action and great acting.

Great flick and very influential: the entire paddling life-rafts across the river to the other side of Nijmegen bridge scene, dialogue and all found it's way onto the game Call of Duty 2 -- that was kinda cool.

Great war film.

For such an impressive cast this is rather mundane - its overlong and elicits little human interest.

Nice War Movie

The combat theatrics here are pretty outdated, but forgivable for its time, and occasionaly it gets a little too upbeat considering the calamitous battle on display. Otherwise an impressive war epic, portraying difficult (and many erroneous) decisions taken in uncertain predicaments. The general historicity is said to be very good, and the cast is about as all-star as all-star gets.

attenborough involves you in the action by skillfully giving several p.o.v.s a parachute drop is seen from the plane, from a nearby plane, from the parachuter himself, and finally from the ground. a bridge assault is seen from the men on the bridge, men to the side of the bridge, and men firing from a building overlooking the bridge. great direction. the unfolding snafu and sad drama of war was done well. its only shortcoming is that all the characters sometimes felt disconnected from each other

There's not a very clear narrative in this even though it follows true events. There are so many moving pieces that being familiar with Market-Garden's almost essential and even though I have a layman's familiarity with it (before watching this movie) I still found myself lost from time to time.

Good film. It follows persons on the allied side and tells mainly heroic stories. Interesting comparison is when you compare the beginning to 9/11 when individuals did see faults in the planning of the attack but bowed before authority so there were few warnings of trouble. Great acting and directing. Enjoyed the film.