The Bridge on the River Kwai

I have an irrational and unfortunate prejudice against old movies. I don't know why, but if you hand me any element of pop culture, be it movies, TV, or music, that was created before 1980, my knee jerk reaction is, "No thanks." Athletes have become progressively better at sports over time, and my theory is that the same goes for the ceiling of other aspects of pop culture. Modern actors are better, modern cinematics are better, modern writers are better, modern instrumentals and sound systems are better, and today's creators are able to build on a rich history of what works and what doesn't. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people butchering all three of those forms of entertainment today (particularly music....damn kids), but I think that at their peak, all three are superior to anything that existed forty years ago.

That's why I'm damn surprised that I actually decided to sit down and watch a consensus all-time classic in Bridge on the River Kwai. It's further surprising because I am not big into war films, and it I think it's honestly because I tried to memorize the AFI Top 100 a long time ago and it had a cool title that was always easy to remember. I looked up a plot summary years ago and it seemed interesting enough. It happened to be airing early on Father's Day, so I recorded it and watched it over the course of the following five days (this is how watching a movie operates when you have two children and a spouse who is not directly invested in the film).

Bridge on the River Kwai is the story of British prisoners in a World War II era Japanese prison camp. The Japanese commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), is under great pressure to construct the titular bridge over the titular river to connect Bangkok and Rangoon, as this is will be of great military benefit to Japan. The British prisoners are under the command of the respected Lt. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness). Nicholson is principled to a fault (key word) and bravely insists that high-ranking officers will not perform manual labor on the bridge. At first, Saito reprimands him for this refusal, but his desperation to complete the project on time eventually leads him to concede this demand, as there are skilled engineers among the British officers.

Nicholson is appalled to see the British soldiers are intentionally doing poor work to sabotage the bridge (and thus abet the Allies' war effort). He takes command of the operation and insists that the British army should take pride in their work, both for morale reasons and to maintain their identity as soldiers. Meanwhile, an American in the prison camp, Commander Shears (William Holden), escapes from captivity. He eventually winds up as part of a four-man expedition under the command of the British army to plant explosives on the bridge and destroy it when a train carrying soldiers attempts to cross it.

The most important relationship in the film is between Saito and Nicholson. Nicholson's a prisoner, but Saito will be forced to commit ritual suicide if he can't complete the bridge on time, and he can't do it without Nicholson's help. The fact that Nicholson has superior leadership skills gives Saito great grief, but there's a palpable deepening respect that the two have for one another over the course of the movie. In the events leading up to the film's climax, they're practically one another's closest allies. That begs the question of whether Nicholson's attempts to maintain a sense of pride in the British soldiers actually bleeds into treasonous activity, as a proper bridge is of critical importance to their Japanese enemies. There's rich irony built into this story every step of the way.

The Saito/Nicholson plot is very strong, and Guinness wound up taking home Best Actor hardware for his efforts, which kind of surprises me after seeing the film. He was decent in the role, but I wasn't blown away. I thought Holden gave a better performance, even though Shears' arc was probably the most problematic thing about the film from a plot perspective. His team's journey to blow up the bridge was unnecessarily drawn-out and rather boring, despite Holden's charisma. Bridge on the River Kwai is a very long film, at 2 hours and 41 minutes, but there is certainly not 2 hours and 41 minutes worth of story here. They could have cut a good amount of Shears' scenes and been no worse for the wear.

I'm glad I watched this movie, but I don't think it did much to dispel my stubborn beliefs about things made more than a half-century ago. Bridge on the River Kwai is regarded as an all-time classic and a culturally relevant film. I can certainly understand that, as I could believe it was much better than anything that came out at the time. However, I just don't think it holds up against modern filmmaking, and the excessively long Shears storyline dings it, because it got just as much screen time as the good stuff. Rake me over the coals for this if you must.

Grade: B-