This is a new blog post type I decided I want to start doing. I’m calling them “hot takes” and they’re my immediate reactions to movies, tv, video games, and books shortly after I finish them. I won’t do them for everything I watch, just the ones that made me want to say stuff. I also just wanted to be able to do something that’s easy to write so I get in the habit.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Operation Market Garden is an interesting choice of subject for a movie. It’s pretty much an unequivocal failure and this film doesn’t shy away from that. It also doesn’t shy away from the human toll that war takes.

Contemporary reviews consider this movie overlong, and I see where they’re coming from. At nearly 3 hours, it’s a slog. But I think that slog serves a thematic purpose. For ever small victory, there’s a ton of setbacks or frustrating stalling. The fact that not much “happens” is the point.

Band of Brothers also depicted Operation Market Garden as well, but as a episode in a miniseries the tone feels much different. You can enjoy the small victories more and even with the inevitable retreat, you have another episode to look forward to where you can see Easy company’s next challenge (which they will likely overcome).

By contrast, A Bridge Too Far’s denouement shows the cost of that failure. First, the left behind wounded allied soldiers, singing melancholically before being taken as prisoners of war. Finally, we see the Dutch people who helps the soldiers during their efforts walking through their destroyed village. And this is only days after the soldiers were welcomed as liberators.

The cast in this movie is pretty stacked as well. Sean Connery’s General Urquhart is the closest the movie gets to a protagonist, but Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Robert Redford, Elliot Gould, and Gene Hackman all get turns to shine. And that’s just a slice of the cast chock full of legends.

All in all, it’s a good war movie that makes me feel feelings that I’m not used to from that genre, which I like.