Review of Bridge of Spies (2015) by Ben T — 04 Feb 2016

Bridge of Spies is a Cold War thriller directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks. This film is a brilliant, optimistic film that is very entertaining and isn't doom and gloom and instead looks on the fairly positive attitude of the tense situation in the film.

Tom Hanks continues to be one of the most likeable leading actors still working today and he gives a great performance. He's very warm and likeable and I love how even though his character is hated by the public who even go as far to attempt to kill his family, he still keeps a very positive attitude.

While Hanks is great the show stealer here is acclaimed theatre actor Mark Rylance as the Soviet spy. He's absolutely fantastic and he's very likeable. He has some of the funniest lines in the movie which was surprising and he's just fantastic and deserves all the acclaim he is getting.

Jesse Plemons is also in this film and he's great although it is only a small role. This is also a very well directed movie by Spielberg who continues to provide amazing work and it's one of his best films in a while.

This film could have been extremely depressing but Spielberg decided to go for a much more positive and family friendly movie which is a great choice. This movie is also brilliantly written Joel and Ethan Coen, directors of Fargo and No Country For Old Men.

There a few brilliant speeches, like the speech Tom Hanks gives about what it means to be American; but the speech Rylance gives about the standing man is just amazing, it's so well written and delivered by Rylance and it's one of the highlights of the movie.

This film only has one action sequence, the plane sequence which is amazing and very gripping, so the writing has to carry the film and it does magnificently. There are also some very tense scenes, especially the plane sequence.

While this is a great movie I have a few flaws which stop this being a great movie. For one a character gets introduced who Hanks also has to bargain for and while you do want to see him get home, he doesn't get much character development and he's introduced too late into the movie.

Also I don't think the end is as thrilling as the film is hoping for. It is tense but it isn't nail bitingly tense as it should be. However Bridge of Spies has great acting, directing and writing.

It's funny, thrilling and very well made. A-.