A Bridge Too Far: Collector's Edition

One of the few World War II movies about an Allied defeat, this bold and heroic 1977 film by then-rookie director Richard Attenborough (Gandhi, Chaplin) is a detailed account of Operation Market Garden—the overly ambitious but under-planned, bigger-than-D-Day (but disastrous) 1944 attempt to secure several Netherlands bridges as a route for charging into ailing Nazi Germany. Like all war films, A Bridge Too Far is as much a reflection of the time it was made (post-Vietnam, with the hairstyles to prove it) as of the period it depicts, and as such the picture has complicated, contemplative antiwar airs without diminishing one iota the heroism of its characters. The realistic, documentary-inspired battle scenes set a new standard for sucking the viewer into the action (influencing the likes of Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Saving Private Ryan), and the volumes of military minutia (e.g., the supply problems that come with dropping 35,000 paratroopers behind enemy lines) come across vividly without bulky exposition thanks to the smart script by William Goldman (All the President's Men). Featuring an all-star cast including Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliot Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Liv Ullmann, and Gene Hackman (wrestling with an awful Polish accent), A Bridge Too Far is a great war story that should have wide appeal. Presented in a double-disc collector's edition, DVD extras include a dry commentary with Goldman and crew members, but several solid event-related and “making-of” featurettes and documentaries, as well as a feature-length trivia track. Highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)[Blu-ray Review—June 24, 2008—MGM, 176 min., PG, $39.98—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1977's A Bridge Too Far sports a decent transfer with DTS HD 5.1 Master lossless sound. The only bonus feature on the disc is trailers. Bottom line: a solid looking Blu-ray release that is—unfortunately—completely shorn of the double-disc standard DVD “collector's edition” fine array of extras.]