The best thing I can say is that it's clear the U.S. Navy cooperated a *lot* making this picture, as there's very nice and real plans and ships and everything all over the place. Unfortunately, this is one of those movies where the exposition--you know, the part kind of 'setting up' the major conflicts--takes up 3/4 of the movie. Up until the titular attack on "the bridges at Toko Ri," we have an hour and a half of, well, I'm not sure--mostly of Mickey Rooney being alternately silly and angry, Holden's family spending time together, and an absolutely astonishing amount of airplanes taking off and landing. Landing (or inability to land) airplanes accounts for right about 100% of the conflict in this film until the last 10 minutes. For a film that I suppose was trying to be a thinking, feeling man's war film, there is a curious lack of thinking or feeling. Various characters appear for a scene or two, engage in some overwrought meditation about war or male bonding, and then other characters replace them. The most consistently significant character throughout the film is actually Mickey Rooney, who unfortunately is stuck playing a silly, one-dimensional role. And that's really the #1 problem here: this film wants to be more about the characters than about the war, but the characters are cliché and contrived. Well, that and it's just plain dull.
Review of The Bridges at Toko-Ri
