It is about Operation Market Garden, devised by General Montgomery. The Allies parachuted men into the Netherlands, behind enemy lines, with the objective of taking six bridges from the enemy. The idea was bring the troops together in Arnhem, Holland. Military intelligence was aware that this project was likely to be a failure, since photos had been made available showing that a large German detachment had been moved - randomly - to Arnhem, but the top brass decided to let the project go ahead regardless. In fact, it nearly succeeded, despite the unexpected opposition, proving in the end to be just "a bridge too far".

If my grasp of the plot seems a bit vauge, that's one of the problems with the film. The tactics are not made clear enough, so its easy to get lost as to which troops are going where, what they're doing and why. I've seen the film at least five times, and I'm still rather confused about some of the events depicted. The first hour or so is entertaining and straightforward, but once we get into Holland it all gets very jumbled. Some of the actors still manage to make an impression in the middle of the muddle. Edward Fox is wonderful as Brian Horrocks, and his speech about the project being "like one of those American cowboy films" is one of the highlights of the film. Anthony Hopkins is as good as ever as the "hero" of the operation, Colonel Frost, and Sean Connery holds the film together in the last hour. Indeed, most of the best moments occur because the real people portrayed are still alive and were able to comment on the recreation. But Dirk Bogarde looks bored stiff as the man behind the disaster, and the likes of Caine, Redford, Olivier and Caan just get lost, despite their considerable pay cheques. A word must be said for Gene Hackman, who seems to be sending the whole film up as the Polish General - he pronounces all his "g" sounds hard, thus making himself appear like an interloper from Allo Allo.

The film was obviously an enormous undertaking, and it looks very expensive and sometimes highly impressive. Fans of armaments will be in hog heaven while watching this film, and it does look, to this non-specialist, pretty accurate. There's a definite sense of excitement and exhilaration near the beginning, with the extraordinary scenes of the parachute drop, and the planning of the operation. William Goldman - who wrote the brilliant script for All the Presidents Men - does his best, but the occasional bit of witty dialogue does not atone for the structural failures of the script. The constant guest-star appearances are distracting, destroying the attempts at realism, and the wallowing in failure becomes rather depressing by the end of the film. Attenborough takes pains to assure us that war is hell, but he forgets that sitting through his film should be slightly more pleasant. He loses sight of the plot and ends up by battering us into submission. By the end, it's hard to care one way or the other - although the film ends with a powerfully understated confrontation between Connery and Bogarde that is well worth waiting for.

MGM have not spent much time on this disc, going by the image quality. It's anamorphic 2.35:1, which adds an appropriate sense of scale, but the images are grainy and the contrast is very poor. Generally, the exterior scenes are better than the interior ones, but artifacts crop up constantly throughout the film. The sound quality is slightly better. There is some attempt to place dialogue naturally, which is often effective, and the sound effects are used well. But there isn't enough bass, so the fighting scenes, which should be spectacular, are rather weakened. The score sounds rather quiet in places, but is usually impressively clear and sharp.

The only extra on the disc is the theatrical trailer, not really worth watching but at least it's there for those who want it.It does reveal, however, that the film was scaled as an "event" picture, and perhaps goes some way towards explains the negative reviews the film received at the time. The film is given a reasonable, if not generous, 32 chapter stops. There is the usual MGM booklet in the package, which is fairly interesting, but the same question rears its head - why isn't this material on the disc itself ?

As epic war films go, A Bridge Too Far isn't bad, but to be honest, I would recommend giving it a miss and diving straight into war films which are much more enjoyable, such as The Dirty Dozen, or serious films which are more effective like Saving Private Ryan or Peckinpah's superb Cross of Iron. For die-hard fans of war films though, this DVD may be worth considering, despite the rather patchy presentation.

Mike Sutton