I really like Steven Spielberg as a director. He is one of the most important filmmakers of the last forty years easily. Saying that though I kind of feel as though he isn’t as innovative as he once was. Sure he still makes good films, but I think a lot of people have figured out his formula for directing. One of the types of movies he loves to make are period pieces. Now I didn’t see Lincoln (2012) because I didn’t really feel like sitting through three hours of historical inaccuracies. I plan on watching it someday because I could be wrong and maybe that movie is great but at the time it came out it didn’t really grab me. I was interested in Spielberg’s new movie Bridge of Spies though mostly because it is a period piece about the Cold War. There aren’t near as many movies about the Cold War as there are for World War II mostly because it wasn’t a conventional war so I was interested to see how Spielberg would handle this movie.
Bridge of Spies is about an American insurance lawyer named James Donovan (Tom Hanks) who is recruited by his firm to defend a man named Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) who has been accused of being a Russian spy. The court proceedings go forth and Donovan does what he can to defend Abel because he believes in justice for everyone even if you aren’t a citizen of the United States. A few months later a US pilot is captured by the Soviet Union after trying to take pictures from giant cameras hanging from his plane. Now Donovan is recruited by the CIA to negotiate a trade between the two prisoners mostly because he doesn’t work for the US government and so they feel it might be easier for a private citizen to do it. To do this he must put his own life in possible danger and go to East Berlin right after the Berlin Wall has just been put up.
One thing I didn’t quite expect from this movie is that it was pretty lighthearted and had a comedic tone. The comedic tone may be from the fact that it was written by the Coen Brothers at one point although it is hard to tell because it isn’t exactly their trademark dark humor. I think because of this tone Tom Hanks was perfectly cast in this role. Tom Hanks has always come off as very likable and he brings that charm to this character who is really just trying to do the right thing despite all the hate he will get from the public. In many ways it is sort of a political underdog story about a guy who is just trying to do what is best for both the US and Soviet Union.
The plot of this movie is pretty interesting and intriguing. Despite that though I also have to admit that it is pretty standard. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it mediocre or anything like that, but it certainly is standard. In a lot of ways I kind of feel like Spielberg is just going through the motions with a lot of these movies. On the other hand though it also possible that what is considered innovative film making has just past him up. I really feel that if Bridge of Spies had been made in the ’90s it would have come off much better. Now that wouldn’t keep it from becoming dated over time and I’m not saying it would become dated just because it is a period piece. This style of film making just scream 1990s to me mostly due to Spielberg using all his trademarks of schmaltzy tricks such as manipulating the viewer by making them feel emotion with music. I’m okay with that to a point and I don’t think he goes overboard with that in this movie, but it is there. When he did things like that in the 80s and 90s. It almost feels like a director from the 1950s trying to make a very melodrama movie in the bleak 1970s.
One more problem I had with this movie that kind of brought it down for me was a little propaganda in the middle where they blatantly show the US treating their prisoner better than the Soviet Union. Now maybe that is really how it went but there is no way for Spielberg or anyone else to know for sure. If I want to watch one sided propaganda pieces I’ll just turn on MSNBC or Fox News. Saying that though there are quite a few good things in this movie and it is certainly worth your time. I can’t say that it is Spielberg’s best movie, but I think with Spielberg you can always get a guarantee that you are at least getting something of quality.
Dave’s Rating- ★★★½ (3½ ) out of ★★★★★(5)
