Bridge of Spies. The ultimate cure for insomnia. Okay, okay, it wasn’t that bad. It actually started great. It was also based upon a true story, so it had that going for it. But Lincoln, War Horse, and Munich were all Steven Spielberg-directed movies, and I found all three of those to be incredibly dull. I’m a huge Spielberg fan, but after a quick scan of his filmography, I haven’t liked a movie he directed in a decade (2005’s War of the Worlds). And I want to branch off from the science-fiction/action-adventure genre that really defined him, but he seems to be missing something when it comes to these dramas. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule.
Saving Private Ryan was one of the greatest movies ever made. So, while I appreciate his desire to recapture the glory he achieved in movies like Amistad or films like Schindler’s List, I must wonder why he’s wasting his time on a film like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Worse, based on how poor that movie was, why was he set to direct a fifth installment of the series? Long story short, this isn’t the same Steven Spielberg of the 1980s and 1990s. There will be fans of the style of films he seems to be mainly concentrating on now (heck, Munich, War Horse, and Lincoln were all nominated for best picture), but all three of these movies (as well as Bridge of Spies) just felt long and tedious to me.
Bridge of Spies is the fourth time Spielberg and Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks) have teamed up. The best of these movies was the nearly flawless Saving Private Ryan, but Catch Me If You Can was also quite impressive, and The Terminal was serviceable and worth watching. What they had going for them was that they weren’t straight dramas. Saving Private Ryan was both a drama and an action/adventure film. Catch Me If You Can was a drama and action-adventure film with a touch of comedy. The Terminal was a balanced mix of comedy and drama. Bridge of Spies is similar to Munich, War Horse, and Lincoln because it’s nearly all drama. Yes, it is also in the mystery/suspense category, but there wasn’t much mystery here, and whatever suspense it should have had felt somewhat unimportant.
The first is the positives. Hanks brought it. Like Spielberg, I have questioned some of his recent roles. I am not a fan of The Da Vinci Code series. Larry Crowne, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Cloud Atlas were all duds. Captain Phillips should have been superb, but it was only good. The past decade has been marked by numerous misses, aside from the highly successful Toy Story movies. But even when his films are bad, Hanks is usually outstanding, and Bridge of Spies is no exception.
Based on the true story, Hanks plays an honorable insurance lawyer from Brooklyn who, in 1957 at the beginning of the Cold War, is asked to defend Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance – The Other Boleyn Girl, Intimacy), an accused Soviet spy living in New York City. While the United States and the U.S.S.R. are equally terrified of firing nuclear missiles at each other, the F.B.I. and other federal government officials feel it is important to show due process and give Abel a fair trial for the world to see. Therefore, an independent attorney is needed, and that’s why Donovan is called. Though he is a highly skilled negotiator respected in the legal community, he had never had a case as a criminal defense attorney. The thought in America was, “How would we want an American agent treated if Soviet officials caught him”? So while he was convicted before he set foot into a courtroom, the American court system wanted him to “look good” in defeat. Little did they know just how committed Donovan was to the principles of justice and protection of human rights, regardless of the person’s citizenship on trial.
Meanwhile, the very situation that the U.S. was worried about has happened. While on a reconnaissance mission, an American U-2 spy plane is shot down over Soviet airspace. Pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell, Whiplash, Dolphin Tale) is convicted and sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison. Fearful that Powers will be forced to divulge classified information, the C.I.A., while at the same time denying any knowledge of the incident itself, seeks out Donovan to negotiate a prisoner exchange…Abel for Powers. This is when, for me, the movie got muddied with jargon and details that were true to the story but minimized the human element.
I felt no emotional connection to any of the characters outside of Donovan or Abel. Powers wasn’t built up at all, so while his plane is getting shot down and we see him looking at a picture of his wife, we really don’t care if he lives or dies. Likewise, there is a character named Frederick Pryor (Will Rogers), an American economics student who is in the wrong place and the wrong time, for whom we are supposed to feel sympathy. Pryor did nothing wrong, yet he is detained in a German prison. In the few moments that we see him, we like him. But he is not on the screen for nearly enough time for us to feel anything more. I won’t say any more than this was another opportunity to bring the human element into the movie that was missed.
Is this a great movie that’s worthy of a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes? To me, it certainly is not. If I had watched this movie at home, I would have tuned out after 45 minutes and suffered through the rest of it. Even in the theater, with Hanks delivering an A+ performance, it was challenging to stay until the end. The movie wasn’t suspenseful, it wasn’t a mystery, and the drama was nearly absent. The scenes with Donovan and Abel were excellent, as were the scenes when Donovan was home with his family. But this was not enough to overcome the bore-fest that made up the whole last hour. History buffs will likely enjoy this movie, but there are many better options available that are more enjoyable for most of us. So, despite a score of 80% that might suggest otherwise, I’d say bag this movie and see something else.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8/10 (there wasn’t a lot of development of characters…Donovan was a good man at the beginning and a good man at the end…Abel, as the main supporting character in this movie, remained unchanged at the end of the film as he was at the beginning. That said, he was a spy and was able to mask his true self quite effectively.
Character Chemistry 9/10 (Hanks and Rylance were great…the previously unknown Rylance likely will earn himself an Academy Award nomination…while the credit certainly should go to Rylance, it is clear that Hanks brought out the best in him…outside of these two, though, there wasn’t very much chemistry among the cast)
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 8.5/10 (reasonably easy to follow…especially for a spy movie…but again, it’s dull)
Directing 7/10 (build some drama for me, Mr. Spielberg. I felt like I was watching a documentary on the History Channel at times)
Cinematography 7/10 (I tried to pay particular attention to the sets and costumes…this movie didn’t feel 1957 to me at all)
Sound 8.5/10 (pretty good score)
Hook and Reel 6/10 (while not an overly long movie, it is prolonged…especially once Donovan reaches foreign soil)
Universal Relevance 8.5/10 (lots of good true stories out there…not all of them need to be viewed on the big screen…I haven’t fully decided if I’m glad this one was or not)
80%
C-
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Munich
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- Breach
- Thirteen Days