Bridge of Spies is a play in two acts, and I’m going to just go ahead and review it as such. Sure, it’s a movie (directed by Steven Spielberg nonetheless), but in thematic style and pacing this is a play. The dialogue drives the action, and the entire thing is simply composed of dialogue sequences. It’s even written like a play, with the scene to scene interactions being more important (and thrilling) than the overarching plot. But this is an excellent play if I’ve ever seen one. Plus, did I mention it was directed by Steven Spielberg? That makes a difference. Bridge of Spies is about a New York lawyer named John Donovan (played by Tom Hanks...of course) who is put in charge of the defense case for a Soviet spy who has just been outed. Donovan is then lead into a negotiation of an exchange for the spy. That’s all I’ll tell you, because to be honest, I have planned on addressing this film by each of its acts, and if I described too much, then I wouldn’t have too much to say. So ACT 1. It’s pretty good. Not great. Mostly bolstered by the fact that the main actor is Tom Hanks, and when he’s “super endearing” you can’t help but love him. He’s also given the most to do in the first half. This is understandable because we really need to get to know this man to care about the second half, but also leads to the problem of the first half being just him fighting a bunch of ignorant people over whether a guy should be killed or not.. That’s actually all well and good (This is Tom Hanks we’re talking about… let’s see how many times I can use that as a valid reason), but it’s all quiet conversations about things that will set up the much better second half of the film. This makes it feel slightly unreal–as if a plate of glass is between the audience and the film–but no matter, because apart from one glaringly misjudged sequence (that I assume was written in by the more comedy centric Coen’s, seriously the moment doesn’t make sense until you realize it’s the Coen Brothers) I liked the first act. It certainly helps that Mark Rylance is pretty great as the spy walking a line of sympathy. Then Act 2 and the real awesome stuff comes in. I won’t reveal the plot elements, but I will say that a lot of very interesting characters show up, and the situation starts to feel more tense. The film’s main draw is also revealed. Donovan meets a lot of interesting people in this part of the film, and how he interacts with them turns out to be some of the movie’s biggest entertainers. There’s one scene in a car with a corrupt German lawyer that is absolutely riveting in only the way Spielberg can make happen. Then about 3 minutes later it gets topped. You may be waiting for me to say that the two parts of the film feel disjointed, but I can’t. Bridge of Spies is a riveting, talky, and rich film that shows that both Spielberg, and Hanks are still on top of their games. I give Bridge of Spies a 9 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |