Film Review - Bridge of Spies (2015)

Bridge of Spies is directed by Steven Spielberg and has a script by the Coen Brothers and the story here takes place in 1957 during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union and Insurance Lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) is asked to defend Soviet Spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) but this case will not an easy one to solve.

Bridge of Spies is a serviceable thriller that is held together I think by its script and performances, Spielberg brings a very detailed eye to his direction this time and there isn't a lot of the overly sweet sentimentality that tends to plague a lot of his films after ET from 1982 became such a massive hit for him though he does at times let the film run a little too long.

The real stars here however are the Coens and what makes their script so interesting (it feels like a good novel put on screen) is that it combines the two strands of the career to date: The serious side with films like Blood Simple and the silly side which was shown with Raising Arizona and some scenes in this film are vintage Coens in terms of how they read and how they're performed.

As for the performances, Hanks is his usual likeable self and he anchors the film very well, Rylance is also good here as the suspected spy but those are the two main performances in the film and look the rest of it is fine (the scenes in Berlin are beautifully photographed by Januz Kaminski) but when I walked out of the cinema after the film ended it didn't really stick with me all that much.

And so that was Bridge of Spies, it has a good script and good performances but is on the whole a fairly middle of the road thriller, worth a matinee ticket if you get the chance, 3 out of 5.