Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it. The Bridge on the river Kwai is such a stupid and dumb film from start to finish and i literally hated the end and how the bridge blew up i just did. As good as Alec Guinness might have been in 'Star Wars: A New Hope' in this film he is just stupid and i hated his freaking character, i mean this movie is literally to stupid to even insult it. (0/10)

Copyright 1958 by Horizon Productions. Released worldwide through Columbia Pictures Corp. New York opening: 18 December 1957. U.S. release: November 1957. U.K. release: 9 February 1958. Australian release: 8 March 1958. Sydney opening at the Lyceum. 14,506 feet. 161 minutes. (Available on a superb Columbia DVD).SYNOPSIS: Captured British officer eventually agrees to co-operate with the Japanese in building a railway bridge across the River Kwai.NOTES: Extraordinarily, Pierre Boulle himself, author of the 1955 novel, although he had absolutely nothing at all to do with the writing of the screenplay, was handed the annual Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.The only other category for which the film was Oscar-nominated was Supporting Actor, in which Sessue Hayakawa was defeated by Red Buttons in "Sayonara". On the other hand, this movie was the Winner of the British Film Academy Awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay (incorrectly awarded to novelist Pierre Boulle instead of Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson), Best Actor, Sir Alec Guinness. Winner of the New York Film Critics Awards for Best Motion Picture, Best Direction, Best Male Performance (Sir Alec Guinness). Most Outstanding Directorial Achievement of 1957 — Directors Guild of America.Best Film of 1958 — Film Daily poll of American film critics. Best Film of 1957, Best Director, Best Actor (Guinness), Best Supporting Actor (Hayakawa) — National Board of Review.Number one attraction at the U.S. and Canadian box office for 1958 with an initial domestic rental gross exceeding $15 million. Number one box office hit in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Burma and South Africa for 1958. Top of the foreign film rentals in India and second to Sayonara among foreign film releases in Japan.Negative cost: only $2.9 million. Locations filmed in Burma. A major contribution to the music score's success is due to Malcolm Arnold's use of K.J. Alford's "Colonel Bogey March".COMMENT: Although I'd agree with a minority of critics that William Holden, fine actor though he is, doesn't quite belong in this movie, it still ranks as an outstanding achievement in all departments. I'm inclined to agree for once with the Press Book superlatives, headlined here as BRITAIN'S GREATEST MOTION PICTURE TRIUMPH! Maybe a little less than "greatest" as there are a number of films including The Red Shoes, Great Expectations, The Winslow Boy, The Third Man, Henry V and Owd Bob which have equal if not superior claims. But a great British triumph certainly. Thanks mainly to Guinness, Hayakawa, Hildyard, Arnold, and Lean.ANOTHER REVIEW: The movie holds up reasonably well. The conflict between three national types represented by Guinness, Hayakawa and Holden is not only well observed and sharply presented, but still holds true these twenty years later. Holden is not outdone or out- acted or even over-classed. In fact he holds up his end remarkably well. Hawkins does not have a principal role, but heads the A-1 support cast... Not only a marvelous technical triumph, but powerful, perhaps even too forceful entertainment (to use that word in its broadest sense). Only the somewhat ambiguously too-ironical conclusion fails to fully satisfy and drive the message really solidly home. — J.H.R. in Sydney Shout (December 1977).

I write this review as a response to another review here at IMDb.com (the first review listed, as of 6/9/2017, titled "Good film, but a travesty of history," written by someone with the screen name "gcaplan").The review by gcaplan states as follows: "I am normally an admirer of David Lean. But it is difficult to understand why he chose to base this film on a real event at the River Kwai, as it grossly misrepresents the real 'Colonel Nicholson' and caused considerable distress to both him and the River Kwai veterans. The Colonel Nicholson character is based on the allied camp commander, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey, who was a remarkable officer by any standards."I have the greatest respect for the sacrifices of the warriors of World War II and for historical facts. I would urge upon reviewer "gcaplan" the following thought: making a great Hollywood film that will sell tickets to millions of people is not necessarily connected to historical accuracy. David Lean did NOT consider himself bound by historical fact as he made this film. He considered himself bound by the need to deliver a great and inspiring movie-going experience to movie-goers of the world. In my opinion, this is the ONLY criteria a filmmaker should adhere to, unless he/she is making a documentary film.History, generally speaking, is too squishy, too-spread-out, too ambiguous, too complex, too lacking in the elements of drama to produce a good two- or three-hour film or script or play UNLESS you play around with the facts, compress stuff, tweak people's characters so as to make them more understandable and/or more dramatic. Shakespeare knew this. Robert Bolt ("A Man For All Seasons") knew this. David Lean knew this. If you're spending a fortune making a two- or three-hour production that intends to appeal to lots of people, and you're dealing with history, you've got to simplify in spots, enhance in spots, move things around. Above all you've got to create drama and conflict that's readily graspable. Otherwise you're just doing a vanity project. If you've got millions of dollars to spend on a vanity project, fine, do what you want, but if you want a return on your investment, as most filmmakers do, you'd better create a great story with vivid and dramatic conflict.Lean's creation of the Col. Nicholson of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (with a lot of help from Alec Guinness, needless to say) was a key step toward generating dramatic conflict in the script and thus creating a great film. Minus this depiction of Nicholson we have a lesser film - in fact, we probably have a nothing film that few people pay money to see.I am skeptical of the assertion by reviewer "gcaplan" that the film has caused "considerable distress" to the brave and strong survivors of this prison hell. I'm inclined to think they're tougher than that. I would like to see substantive evidence for this assertion in the form of a specific citation, since this assertion is the crux of gcaplan's review. I suggest the possibility that the film has caused SOME distress to SOME of the survivors of this hell, and has been loved by others, who recognize that, minus Lean's monumental effort to create dramatic tension, virtually no one would have ever heard of the movie, nor of the bridge, nor of them - surely no one in the younger generation. As it is, everyone who loves great movies has heard of these men and regards them as great. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is a true depiction of what might happen to men at war. It is not true in terms of actual facts and makes no pretensions in that regard. Down here in the real world, millions of people seek entertainment. They got it from this film. It's possibly the best World War II film; it has nothing to do with the actual facts; and I say to David Lean, WTG. Well done, to have the guts and talent to take a less-than-cinematic story, tweak it, massage it, re-write it and make a great cinematic story.By the way, the facts of the great bridge can be found by anyone who cares to do a bit of looking. I urge them to do so.

In early 1943, World War II British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. The commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), informs them that all prisoners, regardless of rank, are to work on the construction of a railway bridge over the River Kwai that will connect Bangkok and Rangoon. The senior British officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), reminds Saito that the Geneva Conventions exempt officers from manual labor.At the following morning's assembly, Nicholson orders his officers to remain behind when the enlisted men are sent off to work. Saito slaps him across the face with his copy of the conventions and threatens to have them shot, but Nicholson refuses to back down. When Major Clipton (James Donald), the British medical officer, intervenes, telling Saito there are too many witnesses for him to get away with murdering the officers, Saito leaves the officers standing all day in the intense tropical heat. That evening, the officers are placed in a punishment hut, while Nicholson is locked in an iron box.