R.I.P., Richard Attenborough. Haters are always gonna hate A Bridge Too Far. And not just haters: Normal people also hate A Bridge Too Far. And A Bridge Too Far has never been rehabilitated as an underappeciated masterpiece. Historys verdict is final: While tweeting (from @bigtimcavanaugh) every Attenborough joint just now, I discovered that although trailers for his later-career films variously define him as the Oscar-winning director of Ghandi, Cry Freedom and (go figure) A Chorus Line, not a single one brags that hes the man who brought you A Bridge Too Far. But I would challenge anybody to do a better job of making a strictly procedural World War II movie with dozens of story lines; no main character; nearly equal weight given to both sides and to civilians (who are not even English-speakers); and a fairly faithful play-by-play of a convoluted battle. You can say, That kind of movie isnt my cup of tea. But the bloated cast-of-thousands World War II genre is a thing, and it includes some truly terrible movies like Ken Annakins The Battle of the Bulge and Marvin J. Chomskys Fireball Forward. Compared to pictures like those, A Bridge Too Far is the Iliad.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 05:01:16 +0000
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