Bridge of Spies is a fruitcake movie. Fruit- great. Cake – great. Fruitcake – crappy. The jury is out on Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Both are great, and almost always make the movie better. Soviet spy thrillers are also inherently captivating movies or TV shows. Bridge of Spies, however, doesn’t quite fit right together. But hey, at least Tom Hanks is always pleasant to see, right? Right?
Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) gets captured by the FBI as a spy for the Soviets in the 1950s. James Donovan (Tom Hanks) represents him in court at the FBI’s request, and even negotiates out of the death penalty to us Abel potentially as a trade piece for the US should a situation arise. Donovan was spot on…twice. US Pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) was shot down over the USSR on a secret mission and captured, and American Grad Student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is captured in East Berlin under suspicion of espionage. Impressed by his professionalism in the Abel case, the FBI sends Donovan to Germany to negotiate the prisoner exchange with various levels of bureaucratic communists.
I can’t believe I am saying this, but Steven Spielberg is not right for this material. Spielberg makes Donovan the center of the film, the rock hard center that everyone bends their will to, the hero. However, Bridge of Spies would have been much more interesting if the writers of the movie, The Coen Brothers, also directed it. The most interesting parts of this movie involve the weird negotiation Donovan has to concoct: a negotiation filled with random procedural conflicts and a cold Donovan gets because his jacket was stolen by street hooligans. Were Donovan more bewildered with the looney situation he finds himself in, the movie would have gained an unpredictability it needs to maintain interest throughout.
That being said, Spielberg and Tom Hanks will always make a movie enjoyable. Hanks navigates the scene by scene tonal shifts effortlessly, whether reacting to a ridiculous fake Russian family or being revolted by a massacre on the Berlin wall. Hanks sell Donovan’s professionalism and charisma make him enjoyably easy to root for. Spielberg places Hanks in these beautiful haunting sets, where Donovan can look every bit the American hero we want him to be (the scene on the bridge is vintage Spielberg). Mark Rylance gets the Spielberg bump here, playing a mysterious Soviet vessel that relieves tension with one throwaway line after another. We never quite know what to make of Rylance, but it’s always welcome.
Bridge of Spies is Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg on autopilot. What results is a missed opportunity at something special that is totally watchable. Movie comfort food is fine for me, just wish it didn’t have a fruitcake aftertaste.