Film review Bridge of Spies

Spielberg’s latest film, Bridge of Spies ends up being about exactly that. A bridge in Berlin where captured spies are swapped from east to west. And the hero of the piece, played by Tom Hanks, is the one good American who will win the day and save the participants. And that is where my least favourite trope of a Spielberg film comes out.

There’s no denying that Spielberg is a good filmmaker and a master storyteller. I just wish that he wouldn’t allow his sentimentality to subvert the real subjects of his movies. What Bridge of Spies should be about, and briefly is, are the two contrasting spies in this mostly true story.

The film opens with Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) being captured. It’s made clear that there is no question of his guilt. The government doesn’t want anything to do with the defense, so attorney James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is randomly assigned to the case. Its then that you get to see the performance of Rylance dominate in his sessions with Donovan. Seemingly non-plussed, Abel doesn’t seem to care about his fate and Rylance brings a real sense of eccentricity and intelligence to his character. The trial is stacked against him, with zero chance of an acquittal and that’s when the film started to lose my interest. Minutes are devoted to the actual trial and the viewer is left to wonder about the nature of the evidence and the drama of the case. I hoped to learn more about the psychology of spydom, and Rylance has the nuance to reveal it. Ultimately, the character remains an unknowable cipher. But it’s deemed unimportant because Spielberg has bigger fish to fry. Namely, after the conviction, the suggestion by Donovan that in lieu of sentencing, Abel may be used as a trade for an American spy being held by the Soviets.

This turns out to be U.S. air pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Soviet air space while on a reconnaissance mission. His guilt isn’t in question either, but unlike Abel, we don’t get to know too much about Powers other than the fact that he is young and handsome. His instructions were to blow up his plane and commit suicide if he is captured, neither of which he does. It’s difficult to care about his fate, particularly with his actions remaining unquestioned. He seems more pawn than spy. So the trade seems unbalanced.

The second half of the movie shifts the focus almost completely to Donovan and his mission to make the spy swap in Berlin. We get an hour or so of stereotypical, and in some cases ridiculous agents and diplomats of the East German and Soviet variety. And this is where Spielberg really shows his hand. He uses Hanks for his Jimmy Stewart quality as an aw shucks, righteous man who not only manages the swap, but gets an extra prisoner, an American student held in East Berlin. We’ve been prepared for this since the start with scenes that show what a good husband and father he is, a sympathetic and kind lawyer, and, it seems, the only character with a pure agenda. So by the end, the film becomes a flag waving tribute to the decency of a simple, honest man. Forrest Gump does détente.