Bridge of Spies

Steven Spielberg’s latest film Bridge of Spies is nothing short of a brilliant piece of cinema. A real life tale told in the most absorbing way, this wonderfully layered story that focuses on humanity beyond borders will give you a delightful time of experiencing an emotionally rich and real cinema.  With his efforts to visualize the old days without any compromise, Spielberg succeeds in making his viewers aware about the socio political atmosphere during that cold war phase.

It is a real life story of a US attorney James B. Donovan. The lawyer who primarily focused on insurance cases was asked to defend for a Russian Spy Rudolf Abel. His sincere thoughts on the case were criticized by the majority calling it as anti national. The conflict zone of this Spielberg film is the mission assigned to Donovan to release an American spy Francis Gary Powers in exchange of Abel. How he does that and how he manages to help one more guy who got stuck in the disturbed Germany is what Bridge of Spies showing us.

As I said in the beginning, it is ultimately about a man’s bold and extremely risky attempt to save a few people. Even when the whole country was against him, Donovan shows the maturity to have an unbiased take on the case. His foreseeing to save one life actually ends up in saving many lives and the screenplay builds the tension and hardships in a very captivating way.  It’s a real life story and Spielberg doesn’t try to dramatize it at all. Even without any such alterations, the movie succeeds in being so emotional. The usual American praising isn’t there as we could see the selfish bureaucrats in both sides and thus the human bond becomes the highlight. Spielberg also visualizes the political situation of Germany in its brutal best.

On screen Tom Hanks once again lives the character. The gradual change of attitude was wonderfully portrayed by the great actor. Mark Rylance also performs terrifically as Rudolf Abel. In a way the most inspiring character in the movie is Abel whose positive and fearless attitude definitely manages to create an impact. The remaining cast also performs nicely in their characters.

Steven Spielberg treats the movie realistically and engagingly. The director beautifully introduces his characters taking ample time. The film gets an uncompromised visualization of that era. The way we see the Germany and also the whole political setup of those days helps the viewer in realizing the practical risk Donovan was taking. The screenplay nicely mixes the three parallel stories and keeps the excitement alive even after being a less dramatic presentation. The dialogues were smart and the minimal background score had a wonderful impact on creating that feel. Cinematography was beautiful and I would really like to see how they recreated those old days.

On the whole Bridge of Spies is one film you should not miss. It has performances, skillful direction, a realistic tempo, technical perfection and an overall joy of witnessing a wonderful event. The rating for the movie is 4/5.