Bridge On The River Kwai #100

1957

Director  - David Lean (Directed Laurence of Arabia, also in the top 100 list)

Writer    - Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes)


Stars     

William Holden (Sunset Boulevard, also in the top 100) 












Alec Guiness (Lawrence of Arabia & star wars, also in the top 100)

Jack Hawkins (Also in Lawrence of Arabia and Ben Hur)













So the first movie on the top 100 is 56 years old. Now, im not someone who has watched many old films, so these are completely new to me really. One thing I do know about old films is, they are normally very very long, and this film was no exception. Im not sure if back in the day to decide if a film was good was how long it was, but this film could have been cut down quite a bit.

There are long periods in this where there is no dialog at all, just endless scenes of walking/working and strangely many scenes of birds. Im not sure if I missed the bird reference, but the same bird starts the film and ends it.

So, this movie can be split in to two parts, the first half is slow and boring, the second half is a little faster paced as the plot begins to pan out.

Kwai was set in 1942 during the second world war, for some reason Nicholson's men were ordered to be captured by the Japanese, and offer free labour.

First part;

As the movie starts the opening credits are shown over the initial scenes, one thing I did notice was this....

For anyone reading this who doesn't know, my home town is Sheffield, so I was well chuffed to see we had (lets be honest) the most important role in this film.

So the first hour is basically a power struggle between the Japanese Colonel Saito and prisoner, British Colonel Nicholson. This is set in the base camp/prison ran by the Japanese. Nicholson refuses to do any manual work, and all his troops stand by him and dont do any work. After many attempts to reason with Nicholson Saito finally decides he has to give in or the bridge wont be finished on time and he will have to kill himself. This goes on for an hour!!!

Part 2;

Shears (US Navy) escapes from the camp, manages to find a small village, they rescue him, get him back to fitness, send him on his way on a boat until he is spoted by a UK millatry plane in the ocean. Once saved he is taken to a military hospital, where is he is head hunted join the British special forces.

He is then tasked with a 4 man  team (and some locals as guides) to go back to the bridge, blow it up and return home.

Main things that got my attention in this movie are - the sheer lack of attention to detail, there are extras in the back ground just randomly shoveling 3 grains of sand from 1 hole, and placing them 3 feet to their side in a pile, some guys are using sledge hammers to tickle some rocks, and in one scene 3 guys are passing rocks in a line, they go from a ditch, to the side of the 3rd guy for no reason at all. 

Also in this film the night scenes are far too dark, its was impossible to tell who was who and what they were doing, daylight was much better back then for making a film.

After a very slow start the film did get better and by the end it was nail biting to see what would happen. Nicholson went from loyal British service man to traitor and back to loyal within 3 minutes. The closing 5 minutes were by far the best of the 2 hours and 25 minute film, the reasons for this are as follows;

• Some fire fight going off
• Shit blowing up
• No CGI back then so id say the bridge did blow up and an actual train fell down into the river

Any way, by far the best part of the whole film, a horrendously overly acted comedy death by Nichols. I laughed out loud it was that bad.

In conclusion, the first half let the film down, the second half made up for it. Could have been cut to an hour and a half and it would have been fine. I currently don't know why this movie made the top 100.

Score 

Visual  4

Crappy night scenes, dodgy editing 

Sound  3

not much in this area, some catchy whistling though

Acting  2

Pretty poor by everyone, only made good by Nichols death

Plot     6  

good story, just took too long to tell

Ending  6

Best part of the film.

21/50

would I watch it again? I don't think so, 1 time only movie.

If you have seen this move, please leave a comment with what you thought.

Thanks