BRIDGE OF SPIES : Saturday 24th October 2015.

Steven Spielberg has been making films for over forty years now and over those years he has developed his mastery of the craft to such an extent that you know you are going to be solidly entertained with his movie making prowess, in every detail, at its best. His films may not always be Box Office sensations, but they are winners in just about every other respect, and so it is with 'BRIDGE OF SPIES' which I saw over the weekend. Made for US$40M the production values of this film suggest a far greater budget as we are taken back to Cold War era Berlin in this film Directed and Co-Produced  by Spielberg and Written by Mark Charman with Joel and Ethan Coen. So far the film has recouped US$26M having been released at the New York Film Festival on 4th October and on general release Stateside on 16th October.

Here we see Spielberg team up once again with Tom Hanks as he has done so notably before in 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'The Terminal'. Hanks plays Jim Donovan a partner in a New York law firm with his speciality being in insurance law. The film opens with Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance on excellent form) painting in his Brooklyn apartment when the phone rings - he answers, there is no exchange of words - but it prompts the artists to pack his easel, his paints and his palette and walk down to the river side to paint one of the city's bridges. In doing so he surreptitiously retrieves a dollar coin from under the bench at which he sits, packs up his things and returns to his apartment. There he prizes open the coin and inside is a folded piece of paper containing a message which he views under a magnifying glass. Soon afterwards his apartment is busted by the F.B.I. and Abel is quickly arrested on espionage charges as a Soviet spy. It is 1957. This is a true story that will unfold over the next two hours.

Meanwhile back at Donovan's office he is given the case file on Abel and told by his business partner Thomas Watters (Alan Alda) that the US Government is seeking for him to 'defend' Abel, even though the nation wants the death penalty for the Russian spy, as do the Government and as does just about everyone else, including Donovan's own family. Such is the level of paranoia at the time that it seems it is only the lawyer who believes in true justice, upholding the constitution, and giving the man a fair trail as an innocent until proven guilty. Even the presiding Judge wants the alleged spy dead and so for him too this is an open & shut case, and the court case is just a means to an already predetermined end. Lo and behold the Jury finds Abel guilty on three counts with the penalty to be handed down at a later date, with the nation and still everyone else wanting the spy put to death.

Abel meanwhile is stoic throughout, never admits to anything and does not divulge anything to anyone, including his lawyer Donovan who steadfastly upholds his ethics of Client/Lawyer privilege even when confronted by the C.I.A. Before final sentencing is past down Donovan attempts to secure a 30 years prison term for Abel instead of the almost foregone conclusion of the death penalty on the grounds that at some future date a prisoner exchange may be necessary with the Russians if the situation were ever to be reversed - then at least the US has something, or someone, to bargain with. When the day of sentencing comes, the Judge hands down a 30 years prison term amidst uproar in the court, the awaiting crowds and press outside, and the public at large.

Needless to say, at a not too distant date in the future and while flying a sortie over Russian territory in a U2 spy plane, US pilot Frances Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down, captured, interrogated and convicted by the Russians in much the same way as the American's did before with Abel. Powers is sentenced to ten years with his interrogations continuing but he too gives nothing away. The USSR send a secret message to Donovan suggesting a prisoner exchange - the Russian for the Yank, but in the meantime another American citizen - economics graduate student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is arrested trying to smuggle his German girlfriend across the newly built Berlin Wall from East into West, and is promptly arrested by Statsi Agents on trumped up communist spy charges.

With this unfolding Donovan is tasked with heading to Berlin to meet with Russian and East German power brokers to negotiate a deal that will lead to Powers being exchanged for Abel. But with the Berlin wall under construction, tensions running high between East & West, and the Russians intervening at every turn, this will be no easy task. And of course Donovan has to do this covertly - can tell no one, not even his own family, and his own Government will deny all knowledge if the brown stuff hits the fan. Into the fray too has come Pryor, so Donovan is seeking a 2 for 1 exchange, much to the dismay of the C.I.A. who assist Donovan from a distance while in Berlin, whose overarching aim is the retrieval of Powers.

As agreements are reached with the Russians and the East Germans and then breached, Donovan holds firm that it's both Powers and Pryor or nothing, and the negotiations escalate as the previously agreed date of an exchange approaches. Abel meanwhile is put on a flight but has no knowledge that Donovan has been negotiating this exchange now for months on his behalf and between the Governments of all three nations (albeit unofficially). When agreements are reached they are done so right up to the 11th hour and only a few hours before the agreed time and place of the exchange, but there is one last 'wrinkle'. Powers will be exchanged for Abel on the Gleinicke Bridge at 5:30am with the Russians, and simultaneously Pryor will be handed over by the East Germans at Checkpoint Charlie, with the C.I.A. taking receipt of the latter calling the former when Pryor is in safe hands so giving the go ahead for the exchange at the Bridge.

All's well that ends well as Abel bids farewell to his new friend for the last time at the Bridge and the two prisoners pass each other at the mid-way point. Abel at this point does not know what fate awaits him at the hands of the Russians but stoically and unemotionally he makes the crossing. With the exchange done and all successful in the final analysis Donovan returns home to his family believing that he has been on a salmon fishing trip to Scotland mixing business with a little pleasure. Only when it is broadcast on the television news that earlier that day a successful exchange was made between the prisoners, and that James Donovan was instrumental in negotiating that deal, does his family become aware of the role he had in brokering that successful outcome. Donovan is hailed a national hero, and subsequently we learn in the closing credits that Donovan was later tasked by President Kennedy to negotiate the release and exchange of 1,113 prisoners following the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Donovan wrote of his experiences with the Abel/Powers/Pryor exchange in 1964 in his book 'Strangers on a Bridge, The Case of Colonel Abel'. Donovan died of a heart attack in 1970 having been awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.

This is a well paced, entertaining Cold War dramatic thriller with Tom Hanks delivering another reliably measured performance the like of which we have seen so many times before, and Mark Rylance on top form as the unassuming, steady, and unshakable spy. Spielberg's Direction is top notch once again which we saw too in 'Schindler's List' and 'Saving Private Ryan', the performances he eeks out of his cast, his attention to detail, and the angst he captures from the era on all sides make for a highly entertaining offering that is well worth the price of you ticket.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-