The Bridge (2008)

It's near the end of WWII. In a small border village, seven 16-year-old schoolboys are conscripted as the front moves ever closer. They're made to defend the small local bridge. There are also subplots that add nothing but screen time. This uses very little of the material available, and its 100 minute running time, or 96 and a half without end credits, drags at many points. Characterization is less of a priority than illicit material. Maybe they figured they'd need something to wake the audience up. So every so often, there's nudity, sexuality, or war violence. Even though none of it leads to anything.Franka Potente is an international film star. So once they had her, they expanded her role from the previous versions of this story, combined several characters, and increased her presence. It amounts to nothing. See, before, it was different people, related to the teens, all individually trying to get them out of the war. They don't succeed, because that's what's accurate. When you have just one person doing that, and failing repeatedly, it gets to be annoying to watch. She doesn't even get closure. One scene has the crush of one of the boys take a similar role, and I swear, it's purely so that there's at least *one* other doing some of that. Where are the parents? They're such a strong element in the 1959 movie. Everyone in the military in this are incompetent, and basically every adult German is a monster. This from the same country who, rightly, made us understand Adolf Hitler, himself?I recommend this purely to those who are too curious to stay away. 3/10

Don't worry about reading the spoilers: the film was spoiled before it was ever made. During the last days of WW2 a small riverside town in Germany is threatened by advancing US forces. Overzealous local officials press a class of schoolboys into uniform in a last ditch attempt to protect the bridge long enough for retreating German units. But then the story turns into absurdity. Within a few hours of recruitment the boys are treated like criminals hounded and abused by older soldiers and officers who apparently have absolutely no regard for these kids at all. Every single adult German male under the age of 90 (excepting the schoolmaster) is depicted as overbearing, abusive, aggressive, selfish, depraved or simply drunken.This production is an utter insult to German war veterans who are depicted here as monsters. It perpetuates the propaganda that every single Nazi official was sub human and that the Germans are highly susceptible to control by lunatics. Even the Americans are ridiculously portrayed. A fighter plane spots a young couple by the river and sprays them with bullets. The pilot even returns for another attempt when he misses them. A bomber pilot spots the boys on the bridge and discharges a 2 ton bomb in an effort to clear them. The fact that the bridge might be useful for his own advancing troops never occurs to him. The advancing column has a single tank which once destroyed has no backup to take out the defenders. An entire company of trained soldiers is quite unable to deal with 6 schoolboys who have made themselves a simple dug out behind a small wall. A few grenades or mortars would have finished the boys in ten minutes but after a two day engagement in which the Americans lose at least 5 soldiers they eventually pull back for reinforcements. But it gets worse. The boys are portrayed by actors as old as 23 and only one has a voice remotely like a 16 year old. They all speak and behave just like 21st century lads who have just had a night on the city club scene rather than simple country schoolboys from the time of their grandfathers. One of them even uses American style yells of joy when killing a soldier. The only trained lad amongst them (who had been to Napola military school) blows himself up because he doesn't know how to check safety catches on anti tank rockets. And when told to withdraw so another unit can destroy the bridge and thereby delay the advance these fantasy kids aim their guns at their own comrades in an attempt to continue their mission to protect it. Rather than arresting them, the German unit, obviously beaten by two insane schoolboys, simply abandons the bridge and sprays them with bullets as they leave. The original 1959 version is a masterpiece of German cinema. Every reader is recommended to watch it. But this remake is simply a waste of your time unless such propaganda has any appeal.

This is a remake of the 1959 film of the same name. The remake is in wide screen, is in color, has a bigger budget, is gorier, and has an international star in a prominent role.Yet, I wouldn't say it was better. The original was shorter, more raw and schematic, made its point more clearly, and gave both the Wehrmacht and the American soldiers a bit of humanity. This one meanders around, gives much more time to the Franka Potente character, and spends more time with the American infantrymen. The German soldiers, by and large, get short shrift. They're all a bunch of weaselly cowards or arrogant slobs.Except, of course, for the handful of high school youngsters who are drafted and immediately assigned to defend a bridge. I was able to keep their identities straight in the first version but not here. After a heroic last stand, which only one of the kids survives, the Amis roll slowly across the body-strewn bridge.I haven't seen the first version in years but if I remember correctly, the kids don't "lose" the bridge to the Americans. The Americans simply decide to pull out and use their resources elsewhere. When the Wehrmacht tries to destroy the bridge, the surviving kids prevent it.There is one major difference that rather spoils this remake. In the original, a non-commissioned officer, Gunther Pfitzmann, is assigned to see that the boys get some duty that keeps them out of danger, some out of the way place where they'll be safe. The bridge is supposed to be safe. Pfitzmann is not at all like the fat, loud corporal in this movie. Pfitzmann has a kindly face, full of experience, and the compassionate demeanor to go with it. When he's killed while trying to save the school boys, it's a moving moment captured dramatically.I didn't particularly mind the extra time given to the international star, Franke Potente. Her attempts to have the kids withdrawn are futile and she doesn't give an especially memorable performance but I don't care. I like her face. She has the kind of features that will last beyond her reproductive period. She'll be great playing old ladies.The American soldiers don't really have much to say, and what they say is dubbed. I preferred the first version, in which there is a scene that has an American coming out into the open and shouting for the kids to surrender and go back to Kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN! A word that means the same in both German and English and is taken as an insult by one of the more ideologically rabid kids, who then shoots the American, who dies in agony with his intestines exposed. Here, the Americans talk about not wanting to make war on children. In the original, I recall only one such sentiment, brutally expressed: "What are you kids doing in this frigging war anyway?" My judgment is infallible, as my shrink has told me many times. "Your judgment is infallible," he always says, then, "Now please write out the check." Given that infallibility, you can rely on my word when I recommend watching the original, if you can find it anywhere. The director was Bernhard Wicki.

I noticed that all the former comments about this film were a) made by Germans, and b) they all slander it, and for me that has some weight. I don't know any German, so I can't say if the acting was good or bad, but it looked and felt at least pretty good, most of the time.As a history buff and germanophile (who can't speak the language - perish the thought!) I found this film to be quite good in a historical context - and, I was impressed by that the equipment used by both Germans and Americans looked very authentic (with one MAJOR exception for the Americans) apart perhaps that the boys were/looked too old: they were supposed to be 16, and not a single one looked that age. Of course, that's the same thing with 25-year-olds playing high school teens in American films...From a military point of view, this is also a pretty accurate film: The Germans did use single squads of troopers to defend small tactical objectives, as the bridge in the film. It also shows the devastating power of the Panzerfaust 100, the hand-held tank killer. Very nice, unless you are on the receiving end of it.The sfx was OK, but absolutely nothing fancy.However, the film has flaws that were carried over the language barrier, namely a totally unnecessary love plot and a more interesting love plot that would have done well to be better developed. Also, I didn't like that characters just vanished from the story without me getting to know of their departure.I have to agree with some other comments about the lack of character development - it could definitely be better, that's for certain. Oddly, the best character development was done about some of the elder extras, not the main characters.The film is also too melodramatic for my liking, so much I began thinking of the Russian film Zvesda which was just as bad in that area. Having the film maker telling me to feel sorry for the protagonists is not the way of scoring a 10 on IMDb.