A Bridge Too Far (1977)

When I was in my teens, I was a voracious reader, sometimes reading a book a day for a short time. I scoured my parents library for interesting book titles (discovering Agatha Christie and Ray Bradbury on their shelves) to read. I borrowed from family friends libraries. One of my mother's good friends had two books in her library that I recall borrowing and reading. One was Stephen King's magnum opus The Stand, a 1,000 page horror novel that I read over a weekend while sleeping over at a friend's house. The other book was a World War II non-fiction book called A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan. I remember I couldn't put it down. It was my first foray into World War II history (besides watching John Sturges' THE GREAT ESCAPE numerous times). The cover on the hardback was a burnt orange with black silhouettes of paratroopers parachuting from the skies. In the center of the book were black and white photographs of the real life soldiers and locations that Ryan wrote about. 

A Bridge Too Far is a detailed account of a failed Allied mission dreamed up by British Field General Bernard Montgomery called Operation Market Garden that hoped to end WWII by Christmas. Ryan was one of the first writers that I recall chronicling World War II battles that now has become a cottage industry with hundreds of World War II books filling book store shelves today including Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation. Ryan wrote one of the first accounts of D-Day in his 1959 book The Longest Day which was adapted into the epic WWII film THE LONGEST DAY (1962) starring an All-Star cast including John Wayne, Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, and Rod Steiger. Which brings me back to A Bridge Too Far. After having read the book, I was thrilled to discover that British actor Richard Attenborough (who plays a British POW leader in THE GREAT ESCAPE) was directing the film version of A BRIDGE TOO FAR in 1977 with an All-Star, Who's Who cast of the biggest British and American stars of the 1960s and 1970s. 

From Left to Right: Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neal, Michael Caine, Edward Fox, and Dirk Borgarde

A genre that became popular and lucrative in the 1970s were blockbuster films with All-Star casts, mixing screen legends from the Golden Age with current box office stars and rising up and coming talent (today, every Wes Anderson film has an All-Star cast). George Seaton's AIRPORT (1970) reinvigorated the trend followed by Ronald Neame's THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972). THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE had Academy Award winner Gene Hackman (THE FRENCH CONNECTION) mixed with veterans Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters, Red Buttons, and newcomer Carol Lynley. John Guillermin's THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) may be the greatest All-Star film with mega stars Steve McQueen and Paul Newman together in a film for the first time along with William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones, and O.J. Simpson. For A BRIDGE TOO FAR, producer Joseph E. Levine snagged one of the biggest stars of the 70s with Robert Redford (THE WAY WE WERE) and followed up with more heavy hitters including Ryan O'Neal (WHAT'S UP, DOC?), Sean Connery (THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING), Michael Caine (GET CARTER), Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION), James Caan (THE GODFATHER), Edward Fox (DAY OF THE JACKAL), Elliott Gould (THE LONG GOODBYE), Dirk Borgarde (THE NIGHT PORTER), Liv  Ullmann (CRIES AND WHISPERS) and Shakespeare legend Laurence Olivier (HAMLET). 

With a screenplay by Academy Award winning screenwriter William Goldman (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) based on the non-fiction book A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan and directed by Richard Attenborough (GANDHI), A BRIDGE TOO FAR begins in September 1944 with the Germans on the run after D-Day, retreating back to Germany through Holland. Hoping to end World War II by Christmas, Field Marshal Montgomery convinces Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower to greenlight Operation Market Garden, a mission to drop 35,000 men 300 miles behind enemy lines from England into Holland, seize several key bridges, and secure them until Allied ground forces can hook up with the paratroopers. Overseeing Market Garden is Lieutenant General Frederick "Boy" Browning (Dirk Borgarde). Browning unveils Market Garden to Scotsman Major General Roy Urquhart (Sean Connery), American Brigadier General James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) and Major General Maxwell Taylor (Paul Maxwell), and Polish Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski (Gene Hackman).  Taylor's 101st Airborne will secure the bridge in Eindhoven; Gavin's 82nd Airborne will take Nijmegen Bridge; and Urquhart followed by Sosabowski a day later are responsible for the bridge in Arnhem. Reconnaissance photos and information from the Dutch underground indicate that there may be two battle tested German Panzer divisions led by Lieutenant General Bittrich (Maximillian Schell) lingering in the Netherlands than originally suspected.  Browning dismisses the photos from his Intelligence Officer Major Fuller (Frank Grimes) as just a few tanks.

Overseeing the ground assault are Lieutenant General Horrocks (Edward Fox). Horrocks addresses the British XXX (30) Corp at his headquarters on the Dutch/Belgian border which will be led by Lieutenant Colonel Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine) and Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Frost (Anthony Hopkins) with the 1st Airborne. Horrocks and Vandeleur will be managing the roads and supply lines in the Holland. Before the operation begins, there are concerns about radios working, finding landing zones for the troops close enough to the bridges, and if the mission has enough transport aircraft. The American and English troops board their planes and the first wave of paratroopers drop into the Netherlands. Brig. Gen. Gavin lands hard and tweaks his back. Lt. Col. Frost connects with his men and they head for Arnhem. Lt. Gen. Bittrich watches the paratroopers landing all over the countryside. He orders Major General Ludwig (Hardy Kruger) to take his men to Nijmegen and hold the bridge. Bittrich will deal with the Allies in Arnhem. Maj. Gen. Urquhart receives the first bit of bad news upon landing. The jeeps to take him to Arnhem haven't arrived and the radios to communicate with Browning back at Dutch headquarters are not working.

Lt. Col. Vandeleur and his XXX Corp quickly run into German tanks. A firefight ensues. Vandeleur prevails for the moment. The road becomes clogged with burning vehicles. Lt. Gen. Bittrich requests to German Field Marshal Walter Model (Walter Kohut) to blow up the bridges at Arnhem and Nijmegen. Model denies his request. At the Son River, American Colonel Bobby Stout (Elliott Gould) with the 101st Airborne are halted when that bridge is blown up by the Germans.  Colonel Vandeleur and his men are cheered like liberators by the Dutch people passing through Eindhoven. Col. Stout finds Vandeleur and asks for their "Bailey Bridges", portable truss bridges to build so Vandeleur can cross the Son. Vandeleur agrees. Lt. Col. Frost and his men reach the Arnhem bridge. They confiscate some homes near the bridge with good vantage points. Maj. Gen. Urquhart sneaks into a town to try and connect with other Allied troops. He's forced to hide in an attic when a German patrol shows up. Polish Maj. Gen. Sosabowski and his troops are delayed by fog in England. American Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun (James Caan) with the 101st Airborne locates his superior Captain Glass (Nicholas Campbell) lying dead in the field. Dohun had promised Glass he'd not be killed. Dohun carries Glass to his jeep and races through German lines to an American medical tent where he orders a U.S. Army Surgeon (Arthur  Hill) by gunpoint to inspect Glass. The surgeon is surprised to discover Glass is not dead. He removes a bullet from Glass's skull and saves him.

Col. Stout and the 101st work all night to build the temporary Bailey Bridge. Lt. Col. Vandeleur and his XXX tanks finally move forward across the Son River. They're only 36 hours behind schedule. Lt. Col. Frost and his men are pinned down at the Arnhem bridge by Lt. Gen. Bittrich and his Panzers. The Germans ask Frost to surrender. The Brits politely decline. Maj. Gen. Urquhart manages to escape back to the Dutch Allied headquarters where he learns his troops are short on supplies, ammunition and Maj. Gen. Sosabowski still hasn't arrived with his Polish paratroopers. Maj. Gen. Ludwig watches Nijmegen Bridge, ready to blow it if the Allies try to go across. Brig. Gen. Gavin asks Lt. Gen. Horrocks for boats and tank support for his 82nd Airborne. Horrocks grants Gavin's request.  Gavin assigns Major Julian Cook (Robert Redford) and his regiment to cross the Waal River under supporting fire and take Nijmegen Bridge from the Germans. It's a suicide mission in broad daylight that Cook and his men accomplish with many casualties. Ludwig orders the bridge blown. The explosives fail to detonate. Allied tanks roar into Nijmegen. In Arnhem, Dr. Spaander (Laurence Olivier) asks family friend Kate Ter Horst (Liv Ullmann) if the Brits can use her house for a temporary hospital. She agrees. Spaander arranges with Bittrich a brief truce to evacuate casualties before the fighting resumes. With most of his men wounded or dead, Frost surrenders to Bittrich. Sosabowski finally parachutes into the Holland, right into German gunfire waiting at the landing zones. Horrocks orders all troops to pull back. Urquhart and his men sneak across a river at night back to the Dutch Allied headquarters. The next day, Lt. Gen. Browning reflects to Urquhart that he always thought the operation tried to go "a bridge too far." Even though 90 percent of Operation Market Garden was considered a success, more men were killed in Operation Market Garden than the D-Day invasion. The Allies did not enter Germany...yet.

What makes A BRIDGE TOO FAR unique among war films is that it's about a military failure.  The good guys (the Allies) don't win. As screenwriter William Goldman says in one of the DVDs special features, A BRIDGE TOO FAR shows that "war sucks." Unlike most World War II films like THE LONGEST DAY or Robert Aldrich's THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), the mission or in this case Operation Market Garden fails. Real life characters like Lt. Col. Frost (Anthony Hopkins) and his 1st Airborne fail to take Arnhem Bridge and ultimately, either die or are taken as prisoners of war (like Frost). Maj. Gen. Urquhart (Sean Connery) never connects with Frost, his troops hampered by lack of ammunition and radios that won't work.  Urquhart spends a quarter of the film hiding in a house attic from the Germans, useless in the grand scheme of the mission.  Even when a plan does work like Brig. Gen. Gavin's (Ryan O'Neal) sending Maj. Julian Cook (Robert Redford) and his Regiment in broad daylight across a river to take Nijmegen Bridge, dodging bullets and mortars, the result of their heroism is a bureaucratic British officer telling Cook he has orders not to move forward. A BRIDGE TOO FAR is an anti-war film with good intentions turning into a quagmire of futility. 

A BRIDGE TOO FAR spotlights both Allied and German leaders making crucial mistakes before and during the battle.  Although he's not a character in the film (shown at the beginning in actual black and white newsreel footage), British Field Marshal Montgomery deserves the blame for conceiving a rushed, ill-prepared plan in Operation Market Garden.  Montgomery and American General George Patton both had huge egos and wanted to be the first to reach Berlin. Montgomery somehow prevailed in convincing Eisenhower of his plan. In the film, Lt. Gen. Browning (Dirk Borgarde) controversially is shown to be the scapegoat, dismissing intelligence from Dutch Resistance and photographs from a British Spitfire that there were more German troops and Panzer divisions around the landing zones than Browning was communicating to his commanders. When the Germans begin to see paratroopers falling from the skies, they assume it's Patton in charge.  Patton's the better general. They can't comprehend Eisenhower put his trust and faith in Montgomery. Oh, but Eisenhower did. German command makes mistakes too.  A German soldier comes across the full plans for Operation Market Garden inside a crashed American glider. The plans are given to Field Marshal Model (Walter Kohut) who immediately declares they're fake much to Lt. Gen. Bittrich's (Maximillian Schell) surprise. Operation Market Garden may have been a total disaster had Model realized what he had in his hands.

Besides focusing on just big battles and war strategy in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, director Attenborough and screenwriter Goldman (from Ryan's book) also highlight personal stories of heroism during the fighting such as James Caan's Staff Sgt. Dohun driving his presumed dead captain from the battlefield through shifting enemy lines to an American hospital tent where Dohun forces a U.S. military surgeon (Arthur Hill) at gunpoint to inspect his superior. The surgeon discovers the captain is still alive and removes a bullet from his skull, saving him.  Movie critics cried it was made up. It's a true story from Ryan's book. A BRIDGE TOO FAR shows the plight of innocent Dutch civilians caught up in the battle. Liv Ullmann's Kate Ter Horst sacrifices her home to the British as a makeshift hospital.  The house is torn apart by German shelling. Dr. Spaander (Laurence Olivier), a local Arnhem physician becomes a emergency room doctor, trying to save British soldiers. Spaander even negotiates a brief truce with German Lt. Gen. Bittrich to evacuate British wounded from Arnhem Bridge. In one of the film's most poignant scenes, a Dutch teenager (Eric Van't Wout) who has helped his Dutch Underground father (Siem Vroom) monitor the German retreat and count the number of German troops is killed in town by German gunfire. The father picks up his son's body and lays him on top of other dead Dutch civilians as human obstacles to block oncoming German tanks. War is hell!

For most of the big stars in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, it's a chance to play real people who were unable to win a real battle like in a John Wayne or Audie Murphy movie. Sean Connery's Maj. Urquhart is against type for the actor. Except for one moment where he shoots a passing German through a kitchen window, Connery is anything but James Bond, stuck hiding in a Dutch family's attic from the Germans when his reconnaissance mission goes awry. When Urquhart escapes and makes it back to camp, he learns his team is lacking supplies, ammunition, jeeps, and radios that can't communicate with Lt. Col. Frost who's pinned down on Arnhem Bridge. Urquhart is a heroic figure yet impotent to make a difference due to circumstances beyond his control. Connery has the distinction of the only actor in A BRIDGE TOO FAR to also appear 15 years earlier in the film adaption of Cornelius Ryan's THE LONGEST DAY in 1962, one of Connery's first feature films. Connery played Private Flanagan in that film. At least Connery was promoted to a Major General for A BRIDGE TOO FAR. 

The one actor who does have a heroic set piece in A BRIDGE TOO FAR is Robert Redford who plays Maj. Julian Cook of the 82nd Airborne. Cook and his regiment manage to pull off a perilous mission, rowing pontoon boats across the strong Waal River in broad daylight and heavy gunfire, overtaking the Germans defending Nijmegen Bridge so the British XXX Corps tanks can cross. It is Redford's John Wayne instant but it's temporary. A stuffy British officer tells Cook that he has orders for the tanks to wait and not proceed further down the road. Cook's men risked their lives (and many died) only to be told to wait (and eventually retreat). Producer Levin and director Attenborough went after Steve McQueen originally for the role of Cook. Attenborough and McQueen were friends having worked on THE GREAT ESCAPE and Robert Wise's THE SAND PEBBLES (1966) together. But McQueen balked at A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Redford was paid two million dollars for three weeks of work which was unheard of in 1977. His presence in A BRIDGE TOO FAR makes this war film that much better. 

In CRAZYFILMGUY'S humble opinion, A BRIDGE TOO FAR has some of the best acting ever in a war film. Besides Connery and Redford, a few other excellent performances to point out include Anthony Hopkins as Lt. Col. Johnny Frost (who was alive when the film was made and served as an advisor on the film). Hopkins gives a nuanced, subtle performance as Frost who desperately wants to complete his mission only to see it come up short, surrounded by comrades either wounded or dying. Hopkins internalizes Frost's emotions. Like almost everyone's performance in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, there's no screaming or histrionics. Watching Frost's dust covered face as he accepts chocolate from the German Bittrich before surrendering is heart wrenching. Director Attenborough and screenwriter Goldman must have noticed Hopkins excellent acting as they cast Hopkins in their next film together MAGIC (1978) with Ann Margaret about a ventriloquist and his creepy, life-like dummy. 

I knew Dirk Bogarde was recognized as one of Britain's best actors like Richard Burton or James Mason but had only seen one of his early films years ago. As Lt. Gen. Browning in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, Bogarde is the unofficial villain of the film (besides the German S.S. Army). Like Hopkins, Connery, Hackman, O'Neal, and Michael Caine, Borgarde's performance as Browning is quiet, understated, and often tinged with irony or sarcasm. Browning rationalizes the obstacles and shortcomings of Operation Market Garden, choosing to ignore the hard truths. Browning even tries to quietly have his Intelligence Officer Fuller, who has cast doubts about Market Garden, placed on R&R by a military psychiatrist (Gerald Sim). Browning puts his trust in men like Urquhart, Gavin, and Horrocks to complete the mission. As competent leaders as they were, they can't get Market Garden over the finish line. Bogarde started out in the 1950s appearing in British crime films like Basil Dearden's THE BLUE LAMP (1950) before becoming an art house sensation in the 1960s in films like Joseph Losey's THE SERVANT (1963), John Schlesinger's DARLING (1965) with Julie Christie, and Luchino Visconti's THE DAMNED (1969).

Some big stars were willing to take smaller roles in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, knowing they had a few juicy scenes to act in this ensemble epic but they weren't required to carry the movie. One example is James Caan (THIEF) as Staff Sergeant Dohun who risked his life and the possibility of going to military prison when he forces a U.S. Army surgeon by gunpoint to look at his presumed dead friend who turns out to still be alive. Caan plays the part with a calmness not always associated with the actor. Caan's scenes with the great character actor Arthur Hill as the surgeon are some of the film's best. The great Laurence Olivier only has three or four scenes as Dr. Spaander in A BRIDGE TOO FAR. His character (along with Liv Ullmann) represent the bravery and humanity of the Dutch people caught in the middle of a bloody war zone. Olivier had just appeared as a Nazi forced out of hiding in John Schlesinger's MARATHON MAN (1976) and was fighting cancer at the time of A BRIDGE TOO FAR. He was told he didn't have much time left.  Miraculously, Olivier rebounded from his health scare and lived 12 more years with fine roles as modern day Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman in Franklin J. Schaffner's THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978) with Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele and as Dr. Van Helsing in John Badham's DRACULA (1979).

At first glance, Richard Attenborough would not jump out as the director to make a David Lean epic like A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Attenborough had only directed a couple of film prior including a World War I musical comedy OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR (1969) starring a host of British actors including Dirk Borgarde, Maggie Smith, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, and Laurence Olivier. Attenborough had appeared in John Sturges THE GREAT ESCAPE which has similar characteristics to A BRIDGE TOO FAR with multiple characters and a sprawling story that must have stuck with him. With A BRIDGE TOO FAR, Attenborough proved to be adept handling large crowd scenes, big battles, and juggling numerous characters, and storylines. It didn't hurt that Attenborough had an excellent producer in Joseph E. Levine who let him do his directing and top talent in all production aspects including Director of Photography Geoffrey Unsworth (2001: A SPACE ODYSEEY), Film Editor Anthony Gibbs (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF), and Production Designer (DR. ZHIVAGO). Attenborough's experience with a big production like A BRIDGE TOO FAR helped immensely with his pet project GANDHI in 1982 which garned him Academy Awards in 1982 for Best Picture and Best Director.  Attenborough became famous to a new generation of fans when Steven Spielberg cast him as multi-millionaire John Hammond in JURASSIC PARK (1993).

What I love about A BRIDGE TOO FAR are the pairings and groupings of one of the greatest array of movie stars to ever appear in a film. In some cases, this was the only film where these actors and actresses appeared on film together.

Dirk Borgarde/Sean Connery/Gene Hackman/Ryan O'Neal

Sean Connery/Gene Hackman

Dirk Borgarde/Sean Connery

Michael Caine/Edward Fox

Michael Caine/Elliott Gould

Hardy Kruger/Maximillian Schell

Dirk Borgarde/Edward Fox/Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'Neal/Robert Redford

Ryan O'Neal/Michael Caine

Laurence Olivier/Liv Ullmann

Sean Connery/Laurence Olivier

Dirk Borgarde/Michael Caine/Edward Fox/Gene Hackman/Ryan O'Neal

Hardy Kruger/Laurence Olivier/Maximillian Schell

Some final trivia and tidbits about A BRIDGE TOO FAR. As I mentioned, film critics did not believe some of actual events shown in the film happened like the James Caan scene.  Another critique they had was that Ryan O'Neal was far too young to play Maj. Gen. James Gavin.  In fact, Gavin was the youngest American ever to become a Major General at the age of 37. O'Neal was 36 when A BRIDGE TOO FAR was released. Some of the A BRIDGE TOO FAR stars had appeared in previous war films. Elliott Gould burst onto movie screens as eccentric Army Surgeon "Trapper" John McIntyre in Robert Altman's black comedy MASH (1970) set in the Korean War. Robert Redford's first feature film was WAR HUNT (1962) also set in the Korean War with John Saxon and future director and Redford friend Sydney Pollack. And Michael Caine made his cinematic debut in Cy Enfield's ZULU (1964) set in South Africa in 1879 where 150 British troops held off 4000 Zulu warriors at an outpost called Rorke's Drift. Composer John Addison (TOM JONES) was actually a tank commander in Operation Market Garden. Addison was on the fringes of the action yet his experience inspired him when writing the score for A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Look for these actors in early supporting roles including John Ratzenberger (TV's CHEERS), Denholm Elliott (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), Ben Cross (CHARIOTS OF FIRE), and Alun Armstrong (THE MUMMY RETURNS). 

In the summer of 1977, the film that most teenagers my age (including a 13 year old CRAZYFILMGUY) remember was George's Lucas's Sci-Fi fantasy STAR WARS. I have a feeling there was a smaller group of teenagers like myself who also remember A BRIDGE TOO FAR which was released just a few weeks after STAR WARS on June 15th, 1977. I introduced my son to the STAR WARS universe in 1999 when STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE came out and he never looked back. My son became interested in war history when he was a teenager so I showed him A BRIDGE TOO FAR on DVD.  To this day, it's his favorite war movie. A BRIDGE TOO FAR is an anti-war film. It does not glorify war. What Richard Attenborough and his production team accomplish is a realistic depiction of war using real tanks, planes, a massive recreation of the parachute drop into the Netherlands, actual Dutch locations where the battles took place and the bridges exist, and humanizing the emotional and psychological damage war took on the every day citizens of the town of Arnhem.  A BRIDGE TOO FAR is gritty and no doubt the blueprint for more recent realistic WWII films like Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) with Tom Hanks and a cast of up and coming young actors or Christopher Nolan's DUNKIRK (2017) about another famous British retreat. While the beaches of France, the deserts of Egypt, the black sands of Iwo Jima, and the forests of Belgium captured most of the attention of WWII history, A BRIDGE TOO FAR shed light on an ambitious plan with good intentions that fell short in the lowlands of the Holland.

Armageddon (1998)

A giant asteroid striking earth and wiping out all mankind seems like something only Hollywood could dream up. Yet, 65 million years ago, an asteroid 6 to 9 miles in diameter did strike the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, wiping out 70 percent of all living species on earth at that time including dinosaurs. That was a once in a 65 million year event right? Not necessarily. In 1989, an asteroid around 1000 feet in diameter came within 500,000 miles of Earth, crossing our planet's orbital path six hours after Earth had passed the same area. Talk about a close call. The reality of an asteroid colliding with planet Earth again wasn't so far fetched. That possible scenario seemed the perfect vehicle for a future Jerry Bruckheimer produced, Michael Bay directed big-budget action adventure film. 

It turns out mega producer Jerry Bruckheimer and uber director Michael Bay did bring the doomsday story of an asteroid the size of Texas on a collision course with Earth to the big screen in the over the top ARMAGEDDON (1998). I have to admit ARMAGEDDON slipped under my radar when it was released. I was anti-Bruckheimer at the time. In the 1980s, Bruckheimer along with his partner Don Simpson became well known producing hits at Paramount like Adrian Lyne's FLASHDANCE (1983), Martin Brest's BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984) with Eddie Murphy, and Tony Scott's TOP GUN (1986) starring Tom Cruise. Bruckheimer/Simpson had come across the formula of making films that looked like full length MTV videos with their rapid fire editing and Top 40 music soundtracks. Their films were commercially successful but cinematically vapid. 

When Simpson died in 1996, Bruckheimer paired with up and coming music video director Michael Bay for their first hit together THE ROCK (1996) starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. As much as I loved MTV in the 1980s, I was a snob to the MTV style for feature films (except for my guilty pleasure Walter Hill's  STREETS OF FIRE). I avoided anything made by Bruckheimer and Bay for a few years until Bruckheimer hit upon the successful PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise and produced Bay's World War II epic PEARL HARBOR (2001). ARMAGEDDON was another film that friends had raved about to me.  Before a real asteroid does come and strike Earth, it's time for CRAZYFILMGUY to see what all the fuss is about. 

With a story by Robert Roy Pool and Jonathan Hensleigh, adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno, screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams, and directed by Michael Bay (BAD BOYS), ARMAGEDDON opens with a brief narration by Moses himself Charlton Heston and a scene recapping the Yucatan asteroid 65 million years ago that struck Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs. We jump to 1998 and the Space Shuttle Atlantis orbiting around Earth when it's struck by a rogue meteor shower and explodes. More meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere causing havoc in New York city, damaging Grand Central Station, Wall Street, and the Chrysler Building. Monitoring the situation at NASA in Houston, Texas is director Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton).  General Kimsey (Keith David) with the Pentagon calls Truman on behalf of the President (Stanley Anderson) demanding answers. NASA tracks the random meteors to a giant asteroid the size of Texas that broke through the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, a "global killer" racing toward Earth and probable "Armageddon" or the end of the world unless it can be stopped.

Truman's staff pitches possible ideas to destroy the rogue asteroid. None seem feasible until NASA physicist Ronald Quincy (Jason Isaacs) suggests drilling a hole inside the asteroid and blowing it up with a nuclear bomb. Truman recommends recruiting Harry S. Stamper (Bruce Willis), an expert oil driller currently working on a project in the South China Sea. The Army show up in helicopters at the oil platform and whisk Harry and his daughter Grace Stamper (Liv Tyler) who works for him back to Houston where Truman explains their dilemma to Harry. They have 18 days to reach the asteroid and blow it up before it gets to the point of "Zero Barrier" where splitting the asteroid in two won't stop it from striking Earth. Harry agrees to the mission but only if he can bring his ragtag team of roughnecks with him including Chick Chapple (Will Patton), Harry's best friend and partner; geologists Rockhound (Steve Buscemi) and Oscar Choice (Owen Wilson); and drillers including Bear Curlene (Michael Clarke Duncan), Max (Ken Hudson Campbell) and A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck), who happens to be dating Harry's daughter Grace, much to Harry's dislike. The FBI rounds up Harry's men and bring them back to Houston where they undergo a battery of psychological tests (which they fail) and begin 12 days of intensive astronaut training under the tutelage of Col. Willie Sharp (William Fichtner). 

NASA's plan is to send two space shuttles - the Freedom and the Independence -- into space, each shuttle piloted by two astronauts transporting Harry and his crew. The two shuttles will dock briefly at the Russian Space Station orbiting Earth where Cosmonaut Lev Andropov (Peter Stormare) will refuel both shuttles before they continue on. Before they leave on their mission, A.J. proposes to Grace and Chick visits  his estranged wife and young son whose never met Chick before. Another round of meteor showers enter the Earth's atmosphere and destroy Shanghai.  The truth about the killer asteroid becomes public.  The two shuttles blast off and link up at the Russian space station. As A.J. manages the refueling, a fuel leak threatens to blow up the space shuttles.  Lev rescues A.J. from the fuel pod and both men leap into the Independence before the space station explodes. The space shuttles use the moon's gravity to sling shot their way toward the asteroid. The Independence is struck by space debris and crash lands on the asteroid, killing Oscar and a few others. Only A.J., Lev, and Bear survive. The Freedom overshoots its landing zone by 26 miles. The two parties are now separated with time running out to blow up the asteroid.

A.J., Lev, and Bear fire up the "Armadillo", a mobile drilling vehicle, and begin the dangerous trek across the asteroid to rendezvous with Harry and the rest of the Freedom crew. Harry and his men use the 2nd "Armadillo" to begin drilling into the asteroid's core. The drilling goes too slow. NASA discovers the asteroid's axis has shifted. They may not be able to remote detonate the nuclear bomb. The President overrides the mission and engages "Secondary Protocol" where he will remotely activate the bomb. This plan won't split the asteroid and will fail to save Earth. Harry and Sharp argue with Harry telling  Sharp his team can finish the drilling. He convinces Sharp to disarm the bomb. The 2nd "Armadillo" keeps drilling until they hit an unexpected gas pocket that causes the "Armadillo" and its operator Max to float away. Another meteor shower strikes Paris. All hope seems lost until A.J. and the others show up with the first "Armadillo."  A.J. finishes drilling the hole. A rock storm damagers the remote detonator. The team realizes someone has to stay behind to set the bomb off. They draws straws and A.J. gets the short straw.  As the group file into the Freedom to return back to Earth, Harry disables A.J.'s breathing apparatus and switches places with him. Sharp and the survivors blast off the asteroid. Harry says goodbye to Grace via the "Armadillo's" communication system and detonates the nuclear bomb, sacrificing his life for planet Earth as the Freedom returns A.J., Rockhound, Bear, and the rest of the crew safely back to Houston. 

After watching ARMAGEDDON,  I was reminded that a Michael Bay film is an assault on the senses. Even the most mundane scene like NASA engineers at their workstations becomes a tour de force of 360 degree camera angles rotating around the technicians with garish red, green, and blue lights from their monitors reflecting off their black rimmed glasses. If there's a scene involving the Army or FBI, Bay will make sure there are two dozen cop cars or a dozen helicopters crowded into the frame, buzzing around like mosquitoes. A couple of action scenes in ARGAGEDDON like the fuel pump leak on the Russian Space Stations or the crash landing of the Independence space shuttle, I had no idea what was happening, the quick editing and sound and flashing lights were so overwhelming. ARMAGEDDON owes a huge nod to an earlier doomsday action film, Roland Emmerich's INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996).  Instead of alien spaceships blowing up the White House among other famous landmarks in INDEPENDENCE DAY, Bay has meteor showers destroy New York's Chrysler Building and the city of Shanghai, China in ARMAGEDDON.

If you scratch past the explosions and noise and cinematic razzmatazz of  ARMAGEDDON, Bay's film is about family.  Bruce Willis's Harry S. Stamper is father to his daughter Grace (Liv Tyler) who lives a vagabond life with him, hopping around the world drilling for oil.  But Harry's also a father figure to his group of misfit oil drillers who all seem to come from dysfunctional or broken families. Harry has banded them together under his leadership and guidance. A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck) is not Harry's offspring but he acts like a son seeking Harry's validation whether it's discovering an oil pocket in the South China Sea or asking for the hand of Harry's daughter Grace (who's already sleeping with A.J. behind Harry's back). Chick (Will Patton) is the one member of the roughnecks that does not look to Harry as his father.  Harry and Chick have more of a brotherly relationship as they are roughly the same age. 

One of the things I enjoy when watching films from the 1990s are the young actors and actresses appearing in films early in their careers. ARMAGEDDON has a host of rising talent with ARMAGEDDON a stepping stone to their successful careers. Ben Affleck had just won an Academy Award for co-writing Gus Van Sant's GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997) with Matt Damon. ARMAGEDDON was Affleck's first blockbuster film after HUNTING. Affleck plays another cocky, anti-authority young man in the Paul Newman vein as A.J. Frost. It's also a romantic lead. It's not one of Affleck's better roles yet by the time Bay cast Affleck in PEARL HARBOR three years later (as a cocky WWII fighter pilot), Affleck was more seasoned and assured of himself. Billy Bob Thornton as NASA director Dan Truman had been bouncing around in minor roles until he starred and directed in the movie version of his play SLING BLADE (1996) in which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. ARMAGEDDON was an opportunity to step out from independent films into the big time. Truman is one of Thornton's more mainstream characters, a calm presence having to coddle different factions (the military, the President, oil drillers) into working together to save mankind. Nobody can speak dialogue fast and funny than Thornton. 

If you blink, you might miss Owen Wilson who plays one of Harry's young geologists Oscar. Wilson made his debut in in Wes Anderson's first feature film BOTTLE ROCKET (1996) and was on casting director's radar. He's wasted in ARMAGEDDON but more Wes Anderson movies (THE ROYAL TANNENBAUMS) and teaming with Jackie Chan in the comedy western SHANGHAI NOON (2000) lifted Wilson to success. Liv Tyler may have the most unenviable job in ARMAGEDDON as Harry's daughter (and accountant) Grace Stamper. Tyler was more famous as Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler's daughter, even appearing in one of Aerosmith's videos "Crazy." Famed Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci cast Tyler in STEALING BEAUTY (1996) opposite Jeremy Irons which led to ARMAGEDDON. For such a thankless role, Tyler brings a quiet sanity to all the visual mayhem.  And those shots of Tyler's piercing, sad eyes as she watches her father and boyfriend try to save Earth must have caught the eye of director Peter Jackson who would change Tyler's life forever when he cast her as the elf princess Arwen in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) and its sequels. 

Another familiar face in ARMAGEDDON is Jason Isaacs who plays NASA physicist Ronald Quincy. Today, movie fans will recognize Isaacs from his role as Draco Malfoy's evil father Lucius Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER series or his excellent turn as Captain Hook in P.J. Hogan's PETER PAN (2003). In ARMAGEDDON, Isaacs is just another supporting character who manages to make enough of an impression that he stands out among the throng of other technicians at NASA.  Ironically, Steve Buscemi who plays Rockhound in ARMAGEDDON was the up and coming actor de jour at the beginning of the 1990s with his breakout performance as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino's crime drama RESERVOIR DOGS (1992). By the time of ARGAGEDDON, Buscemi was a familiar, dependable character actor appearing in the Coen Brothers FARGO (1996) and another Bruckheimer produced action film CON AIR (1997) with Nicholas Cage. Buscemi's Rockhound has most of the best quips in ARMAGEDDON including this observation as they head to destroy the asteroid, "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon, and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?" Every big action film needs a Buscemi in it. 

Holding ARMAGEDDON together is the most unlikely action hero that ever came to be. Bruce Willis. Willis began his career in television playing private detective David Addison, Jr opposite Cybil Sheppard in Glenn Gordon Caron's hit ABC TV series MOONLIGHTING (1985-1989). When director John McTiernan cast Willis in 1988's DIE HARD after numerous big stars turned it down, Willis's career changed forever. Willis was adept at bouncing around in numerous genres from comedies like Blake Edwards BLIND DATE (1987) to serious dramas like Robert Benton's NOBODY'S FOOL (1994) with Paul Newman to action films like Luc Besson's THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997) and Robert Rodriguez's SIN CITY (2005) to one of the best cameos ever in Steven Soderbergh's OCEAN'S TWELVE (2004). Without Willis, ARMAGEDDON is an unmitigated mess. Willis bring stability and believability to oil driller Harry S. Stamper. Willis makes us believe the unbelievable that a group of roughnecks could save the world from a monster asteroid. It's a daring choice to have Willis sacrifice his life for the entire planet. He's a blue collar Jesus, giving up his life so his daughter (and billions of others) can live. 

Some final ARMAGEDDON tidbits and trivia. I noticed ARMAGEDDON had some similarities with INDEPENDENCE DAY which came out a few years earlier.  Apparently, in 1998, ARMAGEDDON was competing with another doomsday film, Mimi Leder's DEEP IMPACT about a comet heading directly for Earth. DEEP IMPACT was less flashy than Bay's disaster action film and loaded with more established actors like Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximillian Schell, Elijah Wood (pre-LORD OF THE RINGS), and Morgan Freeman as the President of the United States. DEEP IMPACT made $349 million worldwide; ARMAGEDDON $554 million globally. I'm not the only one who feels ARMAGEDDON is not very good. Director Michael Bay has been quoted that he felt ARMAGEDDON is his worst film.  Ben Affleck makes fun of much of ARMAGEDDON on the DVD commentary for the film. According to IMDB, NASA shows the film during their management training program and asks the new managers to spot any errors in the film's authenticity. It's reported that new managers have found 168 errors in ARMAGEDDON. Hey, it's just a movie!

Michael Bay would learn from his mistake that is ARMAGEDDON, financially successful as it was. PEARL HARBOR is a much more restrained (for Bay) movie that still showcases Bay's virtuoso ability with camera and editing.  The film that surprised me and may be Bay's best is TRANSFORMERS (2007) based on the Hasbro toy and starring Shia LeBouef, Megan Fox, and Josh Duhamel. It combines action, humor, and Sci-Fi much better than ARMAGEDDON did. ARMAGEDDON was one of those big concept ideas that sounded better than it delivered. Director Bay's over exuberance of lighting, sound, and editing just gave me a headache. However, ARMAGEDDON added a big budget film to the resume of some rising actors and actresses. It solidified Willis as one of our best action heroes of the decade. I will still keep looking up at stars each night, hoping that those rogue asteroids and comets out there in space keep missing our big, beautiful blue planet for as long as I live and beyond.