A few years ago, I feared that Steven Spielberg’s career was in terminal decline. After the underrated Munich in 2005 which was as good as anything he has made outside of Jaws and Close Encounters, his next three films – the ill advised 4th Indiana Jones, the failed Tintin adaptation, and the terminally dull War Horse – were all pretty dire. Then out of the blue came the intelligent and engrossing Lincoln, and now he has followed it up with the brilliant Bridge of Spies.
Set in the late 1950s at the height of the cold war, an American lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) is recruited by the government to act as the defence attorney for a recently arrested suspected Russian spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). He is later enlisted once again to facilitate an exchange of Abel for an American pilot who had been shot down over Russia.
Spielberg is on masterly form here, and Hanks is perfect in a role that would have been played by Jimmy Stewart if the film had been made back at the time it was set. Rylance, probably the world’s premier stage actor, and who was superb in the BBC series Wolf Hall, gives a brilliantly nuanced performance. Bridge of Spies is genuinely tense at times, with a script laced with humour, probably thanks to the Coen brothers input. There are a number of memorable scenes from an early low-key chase scene on the subway to the climatic exchange on the Glienicke Bridge.
This really is a must see.
Rating: 9 out of 10