10/11/09 - The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, 161 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050212/

Another film for my film class mid-term. I select The Bridge on the River Kwai because of how renowned it is. I wouldn't hesitate to say it was the most "classic" American war film on the list of films acceptable for the final so I was also hyped to see this. It was also the "most modern" of the three films I'd watched being made all the way up in 1957.

The Bridge on the River Kwai follows two main leads in William Holden as Shears and Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson. Both men have been captured by the Japanese during World War II. Shears is an American, already living in the prison camp of Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) when Colonel Nicholson and his men arrive at the beginning of the movie. After some time, Shears has escaped and Nicholson has been placed in harsh confinement for refusal to obey orders. However, after Saito gives in to Nicholson's stubborn nature, Nicholson is released and thus begins the building of the title bridge. Though it had already begun, Nicholson moves its location and starts all over again. Shears, escaped, meets up with an American camp but they learn of his background. Shears and an officer escaped the sinking of a ship but when the officer later died, Shears took his name in hopes of getting better treatment in prison. Blackmailed by the camp and Major Warden (Jack Hawkins), the Americans begin a mission to blow up the bridge as the first train crosses it. We are treated to a climactic scene as their plan comes to fruition and Nicholson realizes just what he has completed.

The acting here is worthy of the praise it gets. The film is very very good in that regard. There is a short snippet of Colonel Nicholson walking after finally being let out of his torture cell which Guinness claimed was one of his finest performances. Similarly, Holden is a great sarcastic lead. He does suffer from an inability to deliver one-liners, though, which are scattered throughout the film every now and again. It doesn't hurt the overall film much, but just something I noticed in watching. The other main acting characters are Hayakawa and Hawkins and they both do fine in their smaller roles. Hayakawa has an excellent scene where his solitude is spliced against the celebration of the British prisoners upon their release from the torture.

While the acting was fine, I had many complaints with this film. First, Colonel Saito never really seemed like a formidable enemy. He did at the beginning when he seemed more threatening and his torturous ways were only mentioned in whispers by Shears and the men already there before Nicholson's men arrived. I felt this added to his character more than anything that was done after (with the obvious exception of the time when he brings the gun to the group of British officers standing up against the work orders). My second complaint is much broader than this. I never really felt for Nicholson's character. I honestly felt that his goal of building a great, functioning bridge could've been done in such a way where I actually wanted it completed. I didn't. I thought the whole thing was frivolous and that sooner or later Nicholson would realize this as well. Instead, we are treated to an ending where he does, too late, and then he dies, and then the bridge blows up. It's like everything was placed together at the end to tie up the loose ends of the plot or something and it seemed slipshod in my opinion. I guess critics of the time (and even critics now) really like this film as a whole, but this is a major aspect of the movie and I just didn't feel it.

Overall, I gave this film a 5/10. I was really disappointed with how the plot and everything played out. I was still a fan of Holden (going on three movies now I haven't seen him give a bad performance) and Guinness did a solid acting job. That's where the 5/10 comes from. Take those two guys out and give them to lesser actors and this movie drops considerably as away from them there's not much there. I can't see what critics really love in this film so much, but I sure didn't see it. Oh well.