The Bridge on the River Kwai

1957 | 161 minutes | Rated PG

David Lean's antiheroic war epic (1957), about a band of British POWs forced to build a bridge in the wilds of Burma. For what it is, it ain't bad, though it serves mainly as an illustration of the ancient quandary of revisionist moviemakers: if all you do is systematically invert cliches, you simply end up creating new ones. The cast, effectively, is drawn from warring schools of acting: Alec Guinness, William Holden, Sessue Hayakawa, and Jack Hawkins. By Dave Kehr

Director: David Lean
Producer: Sam Spiegel
Cast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Hawkins, James Donald, Geoffrey Horne, Andre Morrell, Peter Williams, John Boxer, Percy Herbert, Harold Goodwin, Ann Sears and Henry Okawa