[yasr_overall_rating]
An American lawyer is recruited by the CIA during the Cold War to help rescue a pilot detained in the Soviet Union.
One will be hard-pressed to find a more ardent defender of Steven Spielberg than yours truly. “Jaws” blew my mind the first time I watched it at the tender age of five. Its score, performances and stubborn refusal to showcase the shark until the end were so groundbreaking, even then my tiny brain acknowledged I was experiencing something special, something that transcended the boundaries of films I had seen before. “E.T.” infused my childhood with an existential wonder, which consequently led to my obsession with film.
I could go on about how I will totally overlook the sentimentality and unnecessarily drawn-out triple-ending of the otherwise incredible, deeply unsettling “Artificial Intelligence,” or the astonishing power and sincerity of “Schindler’s List” (that one shot of a little red coat in the otherwise black-and-white film single-handedly – both visually and emotionally – wipes the floor with the entire “Transformers” quadrilogy – ironically, produced by Spielberg.) With the sole exception of “Hook,” which I thoroughly despise, I’ll even come to the defense of Spielberg’s lesser-known, not-as-well-received efforts, such as “Always” (a dead Richard Dreyfuss extinguishing forest fires!) and “Empire of the Sun” (a young Christian Bale as a prisoner of war!). The director knows film magic, and each of his films contains at least several sequences of pure awe. Remember, he’s the guy who made us believe in aliens, dinosaurs, and that a man can rip another man’s heart out with his bare fingers.
Spielberg’s films can be grouped into two categories: those that embrace his youthful, “go-for-broke” spirit and boundless imagination, and those that display a mellowed, somber, very “mature” side of the great director. Lately, he’s been dabbling with the latter: the monochrome “Munich” dealt with terrorism; “War Horse” told a classical tale of a boy and his horse; “Lincoln” was a painting-in-motion, depicting a crucial moment in the President’s life… So I approached “Bridge of Spies” with a dose of caution, worried that its solemnity may induce a yearning for the audacious, “let’s-do-insane-freakin’-sequences” of, say, “Minority Report.”
My fears proved mostly groundless, as I sat gripped, from start to (almost) finish of this courtroom-cum-spy drama. Yes, the director again adopts a classical style of filmmaking Frank Capra would appreciate, but it’s so beautifully shot by his regular cinematographer extraordinaire Janusz Kaminski (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Catch Me If You Can”), and so eloquently written by Ethan and Joel Coen (no surprise there), that the subliminally tense story propels itself along, making the almost two-and-a-half hour run-time zip by. Spielberg’s gleefully audacious side is intermittently evident too, especially in the moments of literary and visual humor, peppered throughout the film’s narrative. Spielberg’s magic is on full display, making one – for the most part – overlook the minor flaws of “Bridge of Spies.”
The plot, in a nutshell: After an alleged Russian spy, Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance), gets caught in an intense, precisely-choreographed opening sequence, set in the nuclear-1950s, a seasoned insurance lawyer, James Donovan (Tom Hanks), is assigned to defend him. A parallel story-line introduces a team of “drivers” being trained for a stealth-like mission to take photos of potentially hostile territories; another follows a young reporter, as he’s arrested (for reasons that aren’t quite defined) in the tumultuous, Cold War-stricken Berlin. The film switches from courtroom drama to espionage thriller, as Donovan’s journey takes him to Germany, where he has to negotiate a complex, triple-prisoner exchange.
That Spielberg hooks you from the first second is a given, given the director’s captivating repertoire. There are many things going for “Bridge of Spies.” Mark Rylance is serene and intriguing as Abel, and Tom Hanks, who can do no wrong, gives a commanding central performance that anchors the film; his eyes just keep filling with wisdom as he grows older. Spielberg’s filmmaking fluency is remarkable, per usual. The cinematography smoothly morphs from strikingly beautiful imagery of a plane soaring through a blue sky, to a pirouetting, nerve-shredding crash of said plane, to dismally gorgeous shots of the Berlin Wall being built in a grey, highly hostile environment.
Most importantly, the Coen brothers’ script evokes philosophical musings on the meaning of patriotism; the “difference between ‘enemy’ and ‘criminal’”, cowardice and humanity…The film resolutely doesn’t take sides. The East-German, Russian and U.S. agendas get muddled, each pursuing its own intentions, and one can’t help but see the parallels between the film’s themes and the current horrific situation in Syria. It strikes a profoundly resonant note, without ever meaning to do it.
As Spielberg’s biggest defender, I have to admit his films are almost never without flaws, and “Bridge of Spies” is no exception. The “arrested journalist” subplot is under-developed, while the “U.S. drivers” subplot is over-cooked; neither reveal much about the characters. The film loses momentum in its second half, and becomes tonally inconsistent. Sebastian Koch (“The Lives of Others”) hams it up as Wolfgang Vogel, and there is a confusing car-swerving-through-icy-Berlin scene that could’ve been left on the chopping room floor. The music, by Thomas Newman, is just too much sometimes – another Spielberg trope. The triple-ending syndrome strikes the director once again; the guy’s prone to sentimentality, and he ain’t backing away from it!
Gripes aside, the director masterfully guides us through an intricate and powerfully poignant story. I thought it would be overtly patriotic, but its subjectivity, sensitive performances and humor keep it this side of nationalistic. My sole real objection would be: now it’s time for Spielberg to remember his roots, embrace his inner child again. I hope his next film will involve anthropomorphic manifestations of dreams, or parallel dimensions, or transgender space odysseys (yes, it’s quite obvious that I hoped – so much – that Spielberg would direct “Interstellar”… dammit) – or reach new frontiers that only this cinematic wizard can dare to explore.
In theaters October 16th
