Review: Bridge of Spies

Set during the Cold War, Tom Hanks plays James Donovan, an American insurance lawyer who is chosen to defend a Scottish-accented (apparently due to spending time in both Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Scotland) Russian spy named Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) in court. He’s expected to do his duty, that is the bare minimum. However, the plot really moves forward when Donovan is eventually called upon by the CIA to facilitate a trade with the Soviet Russians in Germany, for Abel in exchange with a downed and captured American pilot, Frances Gary Powers (played by Austin Stowell). Further complications come when an innocent American economics student gets arrested for illegally crossing the Berlin Wall at a seriously bad time, and is accused of being a spy. This means having to deal with the governments of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic, who won’t be happy if they find out that Donovan is trying to carry out two exchanges with the same bargaining chip (Abel). Also, the CIA aren’t terribly happy that Donovan is insisting on trying to get the student out, as they consider the Abel-Powers exchange the bigger picture. Alan Alda plays Donovan’s boss, Dakin Mathews plays the disinterested judge, Jesse Plemons plays Powers’ comrade, Amy Ryan is Donovan’s wife, and Sebastian Koch plays an East German lawyer involved in things.

 

Steven Spielberg doesn’t always knock it out of the park, but he’s probably more capable of doing so than any other living filmmaker I can think of (“Duel”, “Jaws”, “ET”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Schindler’s List”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Minority Report”, “War of the Worlds”, all terrific in their own way). This 2015 Cold War spy drama ‘inspired by true events’ isn’t top echelon Spielberg, but it’s a pretty solid yarn, scripted by of all people, The Coen Brothers (“Blood Simple.”, “The Big Lebowski”, “True Grit”), along with Matt Charman (who mostly comes from a TV miniseries background).

 

Like Spielberg, Tom Hanks (as close a thing as we have living to a blend of Peck, Tracy, Fonda, and Stewart) has a damn good strike rate in his chosen field, and I’m happy to say that he’s a helluva lot better in this than he was in his previous collaboration with Spielberg, the failed “The Terminal”. In fact, it’s probably his best performance since “Cast Away”. This is the film that gave a British stage actor few people had bloody well heard of an Oscar, and I must say that my previous experiences with Mark Rylance haven’t been all that great. Like many stage actors, he hasn’t quite learnt how to dial it down a bit for the silver screen. He’s an overly mannered actor, and he definitely torpedoed “The Gunman”. At least in this case, though, he’s fine. However, while I’m not sure I’m willing to say that Sly Stallone was robbed of an Oscar for “Creed”, I will definitely say that Rylance didn’t deserve the Oscar. He’s fine, but even in supporting roles in this very film, Alan Alda, Dakin Mathews, and Sebastian Koch are far more impressive.

 

The film looks absolutely sensational as shot by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (“Schindler’s List”, “Saving Private Ryan”), with particularly impressive dark lighting. For me, the issue is the script, which although it’s an enjoyable yarn, is too predictable for my liking. I liked the added wrinkle of an American student in need of rescue, and I also liked that it was a lawyer attempting to facilitate an exchange, not your typical hero in these sorts of things. However, there is one very unfortunate and completely transparent line of dialogue early on that coupled with cross-cutting, stuck out like a sore thumb for me and made the subsequent trajectory pretty obvious. So that’s a shame, and a bit of an amateur mistake from people who should know better. It’s nit-picking (and I know it’s a story based on truth), but I hold Spielberg in particular in very high regard, so I expect a little better from him. On the plus side, the film has a surprising and welcome sense of humour that doesn’t jar with the seriousness of the subject at all. I especially liked an early dinner scene where Hanks attempts to win an argument with his wife via semantics.

 

The acting works (Tom Hanks is especially impressive), Spielberg is clearly an A-level director, and the film looks sensational. It’s no “Spy Who Came in From the Cold”, but this is a solid spy yarn that would be even better if it weren’t so damn predictable. Still worthwhile, though.  

 

Rating: B-