Review of Bridge of Spies (2015) by Campbell P — 28 Feb 2016

The wonder team of Spielberg and Hanks are back again with the Cold War thriller, Bridge of Spies. Naturally I was looking forward to this film because you can hardly go wrong with Spielberg or Hanks and the Cold War aspect I've always found interesting.

So did this film satisfy? In more than one way, yes! In all ways? No, sadly. What did work really well in this film were the actors in this film. Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance were incredible together and apart.

I would argue that both these actors are Oscar nom worthy. Tom Hanks plays an insurance lawyer who is asked to defend Russian spy, Rudolf Abel from being executed or becoming a prisoner of war. As more evidence surfaces and Rudolf and James get to know each other more and more, the more James realizes that Rudolf needs to get home.

Now that two American soldiers are captured by Russian troops, America and Russia have to come to an agreement while keeping their countries safe at the same time. The story surrounding these events are crazy, even if the plot doesn't make it seem like it is, its gripping at most times.

The reason I say most is that it's not always well paced. There's times where I felt extremely engaged in the story and then there were some really elongated dialogue scenes that didn't have particularly interesting dialogue.

The story itself moves along fairly quickly but Spielberg has to add information to make the story flow better and it didn't always work, unfortunately. Spielberg did direct this movie very well, even if it's not well paced at all parts, it still has some very powerful scenes and great camera angle choices.

There's a few scenes where Tom Hanks is riding on a train and pretty much every scene where he is on one is fantastic. I thought the time period was pretty well portrayed in terms of clothing and setting.

The whole film felt very classy too which was fun to watch actually. It's cool to see classy people get their hands dirty every once and a while. In the very end of this movie, James Donovan feels like an all American hero and I couldn't help but fall for his character.

Even though this isn't the best Spielberg & Hanks collaboration, Bridge of Spies still is a fairly good film. It's classy, it's interesting, very well acted, and very well directed. B+.