Spielberg-Hanks tandem back in fine form in Cold War flick ‘Bridge of Spies’

As we enter the final quarter of 2015, and the summer blockbusters give way to the Oscar bait that will see us through to at least the end of December, “Bridge of Spies” is here to remind us just how good at their respective crafts Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks can be.  

The film tells the true story of lawyer James Donovan (Hanks), a Brooklyn attorney who would become an instrumental figure in one of the Cold War’s most infamous incidents.

Opening in 1960s New York, we are introduced to an elderly painter (Mark Rylance, “The Other Boleyn Girl”) who has just been arrested on charges of being a Soviet spy. With the intention of putting on a show of impartiality, the US government assigns a lawyer from a prominent firm to defend him. Unfortunately for the American powers-that-be, the lawyer in question is Donovan, a man of such unwavering faith in democratic precepts that he decides to do right by his client and defend him to the utmost. Risking his reputation and, later on, his job (Alan Alda, a welcome addition to any cast, appears briefly as Donovan’s boss), Donovan is able to spare his client a trip to the electric chair.
    
At around the same time, a top secret American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell, “Whiplash”) is shot down over Soviet airspace, just as the wall that will divide East and West Berlin for the next three decades is being constructed. As tensions begin to mount on either side of the Iron Curtain, Donovan will be forced to negotiate a prisoner exchange involving Abel, Powers, and an American student in East Berlin.

“Bridge” marks the fourth pairing between Spielberg and Hanks, and the result is a far more satisfying experience than their wildly uneven “The Terminal” from back in 2004. Eschewing the moral ambiguity that characterizes some of the genre’s best entries, the script by Ethan and Joel Coen “Bridge” makes no bones about juxtaposing Norman Rockwell-level Americana with communist war crimes, an approach that could have been a disaster in lesser hands. With Spielberg at the helm, the result is a slow burn narrative that builds tension by depicting the proceedings almost entirely through Donovan’s point of view.

As Donovan, Hanks is in top everyman form, portraying the sort of morally upright lead that Jimmy Stewart made his name on. While a token attempt is made to call Donovan’s ethics into question when he is first introduced, the mere fact that Hanks is playing him makes it impossible to believe the guy could be all that bad. Fortunately, Hanks’ built-in likeability works in the film’s favor – it is genuinely difficult to imagine another actor at this point who could portray a character as effortlessly, unquestionably honorable as Donovan is later revealed to be.

As Abel, Rylance is a standout. Long before he crosses the titular bridge to meet his fate, we feel for him not just because we have gotten to know him as a man of principle, but because he was one of the few Soviets presented to us as a legitimately decent human being. While the leads adhere to Spielberg’s penchant for clear-cut protagonists, the majority of the supporting characters, be they Soviet bureaucrats or CIA agents, are cut from Coen absurdist cloth, serving largely to show off Donovan’s brilliance in the face of their darkly comic relief.

While the quality of Spielberg’s filmography over the past decade has varied somewhat, what has remained constant is his innate ability to find the core of his characters’ emotions. Take, for instance, a moment towards the end of the film when Donovan, freshly returned from East Berlin, looks out of his train window and sees a group of boys climbing a fence. In the very best tradition of cinematic PTSD, he immediately recalls a horrific incident he witnessed while abroad.

The moment is the perfect encapsulation of the film as a whole: Is it blatant? Yes. Is it manipulative? Definitely. Does it get the job done? Absolutely.

Let the Oscar season begin. — BM, GMA News

"Bridge of Spies" is now showing.