A Bridge Too Far (1977) - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

During WWII, D-Day was a success, despite how much was working against it. The Allied forces, perhaps a bit cocky hot off the heels of such an unprecedented victory—the largest sea invasion in history, even today—an even larger invasion by the skies was planned: Operation Market Garden. It was, unfortunately, a failure, and one of the most fascinating chapters in the Second World War. It’s a tale of human hubris, clashing egos, and brave men finding every single element of warfare working against them.

A Bridge Too Far is based on a book by Cornelius Ryan, whose book The Longest Day was also the basis for a successful film adaptation. Like Operation Market Garden, the film adaptation following the successful story of D-Day doesn’t quite work as well. As a film, it’s simply too large and shapeless, a kind of mass of elements with no cohesion to tie them together. What might work in a book, or even in a documentary, doesn’t translate to the silver screen. We, as viewers, hop from one event to another, without ever really getting to know anyone. We watch a story unfold, without any emotional attachment to it. A story this immense, the unwieldy, might have fared better stretched out over several episodes of a miniseries, like Band of Brothers twenty-some-odd years later, which also happens to touch upon the failure of Operation Market Garden.

The issue, I believe, is that Operation Market Garden is a fascinating historical event, but not much of a story on its own. The long story short version of it is that this massive invasion, set to land in Holland and drive through to Germany, simply didn’t work. And it spends much time laying out what didn’t work, and why, and it’s so dryly told that it saps any excitement from it. The episode of Band of Brothers that touches upon the same piece of history is focused on a very specific piece of it, a human story of survival in the face of catastrophic loss. At a mere one hour, it’s much more entertaining and impactful than three hours of A Bridge Too Far, which hopes to have a documentarian’s factuality lensed through an entertainer’s showmanship.

The cast is filled with A-list name after A-list name, with the likes of James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman (performing the worst Polish accent in film history), Anthony Hopkins, Robert Redford, and so on, and so on, and so on. It looks very expensive, and there are a number of sequences that are awe-inspiring in their sheer beauty, but even those scenes don’t know when to reel it in. The scene where the paratroopers land is so spectacular that it must, I would imagine, be on dozens of “best-of” lists for scenes in war cinema. It’s jaw-dropping in execution, a wonderful combination of effects to bring it all together, but it feels so empty. There’s no majesty to it because we have no investment in what happens. We know how history plays out, but what characters are we to root for? Nameless British commander? Nameless American paratrooper? Random Nazi decision-maker?

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray
A Bridge Too Far drops in from the skies and parachutes into 4K UHD in a two-disc release. Both discs are housed in a standard case, enveloped in a slipcover, and both contain identical cover artwork that dates back to the film’s original theatrical release.

As I’ve said several times throughout my review of A Bridge Too Far, it doesn’t really work as a film. But on the technical front, it’s impeccable. Both the 4K/HDR and 1080p/SDR versions of the film are brand new masters from a 4K scan of the film’s original 35mm camera negative. Geoffrey Unsworth’s is sharp and pristine, with light film grain visible in its presentation. The Dolby Vision HDR grading on the UHD disc brings about a varied color spectrum, with healthy skin tones on the faces of our soldiers, and brings out the lush greenery of its European battlefields. Details are sharply rendered and brilliantly realized. This is a damn fine-looking film, particularly in its massive battle sequences as all hell breaks loose.

A Bridge Too Far is available in both 2.0 mono and 5.1 surround options, both encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. Both options are a winner, favoring dialogue clarity, even in its loudest moments, with artillery blasting and screams of fallen soldiers crying out. But, for my money, the 5.1 option is your best bet if you have a proper setup for it. When A Bridge Too Far was originally released, 35mm film magnetic prints contained a 4-track stereo mix; 70mm blow-up prints came equipped with a 6-track mix. I’m not sure which elements were used to create the 5.1 mix for this disc, but it’s busy in surround activity. If I have a complaint, however, the sound levels in the satellite speakers are skewed a bit too low, so while I’d recommend just turning those speakers up a bit, you’re occasionally hit with an over-loud blast of a tank shell exploding. Still, it’s a minor gripe, as the surround mix fills the room nicely.

For special features, there’s not a whole lot, unfortunately, outside of a pair of audio commentaries—one new, one archival. Not vintage featurettes, making-of documentaries, or interviews with cast or crew. Both discs contain the audio commentary tracks, and the theatrical trailer is only available on the Blu-ray disc.

• NEW Audio Commentary – Filmmaker/historian Steve Mitchell and Combat Films: American Realism author Steven Jay Rubin.
• Audio Commentary – Screenwriter William Goldman, along with the film’s main crew
• Trailer

I’m generally fascinated by a big, spectacular failure like Operation Market Garden, and so am I fascinated by a big, spectacular failure like A Bridge Too Far. In a way, I believe it would have been more entertaining had it simply been poorly made. The main issue is that it’s dreadfully dull. It has no story to tell, other than an in-depth recreation of an Allied Forces invasion that didn’t go according to plan and fell apart because of conflicting egos and stubbornness. On the A/V side of things, it’s impeccable, a gorgeous feast for the eyes and ears. Boasting a pair of audio commentaries (one new, one old), A Bridge Too Far is nevertheless Recommended for die-hard fans of WWII films.