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The movie seems to lay much of the blame for the failure of Operation Market Garden on Browning. In the movie, he is shown as not a very likable character, which seems to have been the case. In the book upon which the movie is based the ultimate blame for the failure of Market Garden was placed on Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery <ref>Ryan, p. 401</ref>. Most historians would agree with this. In the movie, Montgomery is missing and not even shown on screen. At the end of the movie, the character of Browning is shown criticizing Montgomery’s tactics and orders. While Browning made many mistakes, including ignoring the intelligence, but the real ultimate blame for the failure of Market Garden lay with Montgomery. It was his idea that airborne forces should be used to secure a narrow strip of territory in Holland which would be used to hold key bridges which would allow the Allies to cross the Rhine, the Nazi’s regime last line of defense in the west <ref>Badsey, p. 214</ref>. The only strategy was too ambitious and the ideas idea of holding territory with lightly armed airborne troops were was somewhat reckless and misguided. Earlier in the war, in Crete, the Germans had learned this lesson and they had abandoned the idea of airborne attacks for large-scale military airborne operationsby paratroopers. Montgomery did not heed this and instead produced a plan that had a high likelihood of failure. The movie somewhat spares Montgomery and this is unfair. It seems likely that Attenborough knew that if they blamed the great British hero that it would be controversial and bad for box office. The movie also does not show the unpleasant way that the British commanders tried to place some of the blame for the failure on the Polish commander Stanislaw Sosabowski. In fact, he had opposed the plan and had wanted his men to be dropped into his native land to help the Polish Resistance to liberate their country from the Nazis<ref>Badesy, p. 289</ref>.