Welcome to yet another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!
I'm swingin' back around to recent years, specifically a decade ago to those carefree days of 2015. For some reason there were three recent Steven Spielberg Best Picture nominees I hadn't seen, so I've taken care of one of them here, and that's Bridge of Spies, the political drama chronicling a Cold War-era prisoner exchange between the US and the Soviet Union.
The story covers events from 1957 to 1961, kicking things off with the arrest and trial of suspected Soviet operative Rudolf Abel. Assigned to his defense (mostly for optics) is New York insurance attorney James B. Donovan, who takes the case seriously despite the US government's intention to railroad Abel to the electric chair while putting on the charade of a fair trial. The presiding judge makes it clear to Donovan he believes Abel to be guilty and refuses the lawyer's request to disqualify illegally obtained evidence, or even to grant a continuance so Donovan can better prepare Abel's defense. Donovan's neighbors and even his wife also resent him for taking the case at all. Abel is convicted, but Donovan convinces the judge not to give him the death penalty, lest any US spies be captured in the USSR and the government should be interested in a trade. This hypothetical comes true when American spy Francis Gary Powers' U-2 surveillance plane is shot down in Soviet airspace and he is imprisoned, and the CIA enlists Donovan to facilitate an exchange (The Agency is of course too cowardly to send him as an official government representative). Donovan is sent to Berlin to meet with a KGB agent and an East German lawyer, about Powers and another American who's been detained.
Spielberg and his collaborators managed to take a fairly dry subject and infuse it with light suspense and a bit of humor, while immersing us in this Cold War setting using striking cinematography and authentic art direction. The subject matter isn't the most engaging Spielberg material, but as Roger Ebert always said, "It's not what the movie's about, but how it is about it."
I found the early passages the most interesting, as Donovan's strict adherence to Constitutional law and his superiors' disregard of it strikes a very relevant parallel to current events in 2025. Due process is a right every person (not "citizen" but "person") is entitled to, per the 14th Amendment, a fact Judge Byers and Donovan's boss Thomas Watters eagerly dismiss on the grounds of "Yeah but he's a commie spy." So much for "innocent until proven guilty." Once the film moves on to the events surrounding the prisoner exchange it becomes a bit of a slog, with a lot of repetition as Donovan is bounced around from one office to another trying to get both hostile countries to agree to the terms. The script, co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen is surprisingly conventional; I didn't hear a lot of their voice in this one.
I was also surprised at how little Best Supporting Actor winner Mark Rylance is given to do in this film. He figures somewhat prominently in the early scenes but is relegated to a background role once his trial is over. I'm not sure how he beat out Christian Bale (The Big Short), Tom Hardy (The Revenant), Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight) or Sylvester Stallone (Creed). All of those performances were more memorable than this one.
Tom Hanks' work here is very fine as always; Donovan is a smooth-talking but empathetic champion of the rule of law, and by that I don't mean the empty platitude conservative politicians throw around when they want to unilaterally punish, but the actual meaning of the phrase. The law is a principle by which all people agree to coexist, regardless whether it is convenient to the moment. "What makes us both Americans?" asks Donovan when a CIA agent urges him to violate attorney-client privilege. "The rule book. We call it the Constitution, and we agree to the rules, and that's what makes us Americans."
That theme for me was the most engaging aspect of the film, I just wish more of it had been devoted to that. Or perhaps there's a better overall story to be told along those lines.
I give Bridge of Spies *** out of ****.
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