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The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
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Reviews Counted:41
Fresh:39
Rotten:2
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: This complex war epic asks hard questions, resists easy answers, and boasts career-defining work from star Alec Guinness and director David Lean.
Runtime: 2 hrs 47 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: One of the all-time great war films, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is yet another classic from the marvelous David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DR. ZHIVAGO). The film is an outstanding, psychologically... One of the all-time great war films, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is yet another classic from the marvelous David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DR. ZHIVAGO). The film is an outstanding, psychologically complex adaptation of Pierre Boulle's 1952 novel, a classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson (a fabulous Alec Guinness), the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans. Although credited to screenwriter Carl Foreman, the script was actually written by blacklisted writer Michael Wilson. The film garnered seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Guinness). The climax is one of the great finales in film history. [More]
Starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Geoffrey Horne, Andre Morell, Peter Williams, Percy Herbert, Harold Goodwin, Ann Sears, K. Katsumoto, Henry Okawa
Director: David Lean
Director: David Lean
Screenwriter: Michael Henry Wilson, Carl Foreman
Producer: Sam Spiegel
Composer: Malcolm Arnold
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Reviews for The Bridge on the River Kwai
The film has great themes ... fascinating characters expertly acted, a compelling plot and brilliant direction by one of the masters of the epic, David Lean.
Lean achieves a fine balance of creating complex characters from a fine cast, while keeping the pace up throughout this long movie.
For what it is, it ain't bad, though it serves mainly as an illustration of the ancient quandary of revisionist moviemakers: if all you do is systematically invert cliches, you simply end up creating new ones.
Most war movies are either for or against their wars. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the few that focuses not on larger rights and wrongs but on individuals.
Still one of the most rousing war films, Lean's epic is rich in characters and marked by an ironic and ambiguous POV in the way that it depicts the conflict between Guinness, Hayakawa, and Holden, as individuals and symbols of their national cultures.
Alec Guinness won his only non-honorary Oscar for this film (did you know he'd be nominated for writing the following year?), and boy is it deserved.
A tense, terrifying, absolutely riveting film about the ironies of war and the deadly psychological games enemy soldiers play with each other.
Latest News for The Bridge on the River Kwai
October 25, 2007:
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June 22, 2007:
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Ten years ago the AFI gave us a list of the Top 100 American Films Ever Made -- and when that was done they churned out 15 other lists every few years. And then last night they... More...
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