Movie Review: Bridge of Spies

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!! I hope you all had amazing holidays moments with the one you love and be ready for a terrific 2016!

As first post of the year I wanted to review the last movie I watched in 2015! 
Enjoy!

Bridge of Spies (2015) by Steven Spielberg. 
With Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd and Austin Stowell

I was very curious about this movie, also because my weird little brain came up with an idea: I decided to go to the cinema knowing nothing but the basic plot of this movie...I didn't read actors' interviews nor saw movie trailers.
True be told, I didn't have to.... 
It's Steven Spielberg PLUS Tom Hanks  we are talking about!!! They're always a safe choice.










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The movie is set between the years 1957 and 1961.

Brooklyn - after a few days of surveillance, FBI agents break in allegedly Russian spy Rudolf Abel's apartment and arrest him. This is the darkest period of the Cold War and US wants to show to URSS (and the world) that, even if he's considered an enemy, Abel will have a fair and proper trial. Abel's defence is assigned to James Donovan, who's an insurance lawyer, but he's firm on what concerns humans' rights. 

Eventually Donovan spares Abel from the death penalty sentence, but he and his family are considered traitors as well since he's defending a national enemy.

Meanwhile, a group of aeronautical soldiers get assinged of air recognition over the URSS and one of them gets shot down by the Russians, but the pilot survives and gets held prisoner. It is just a matter of time before one of the two faction (in this case, the URSS) asks for a spy exchange, set to happen in East Berlin...but, as the infamous Berlin Wall is about to be finished, things will make this exchange harder than ever for Donovan.

My opinion

I want to start by saying that I felt cold when I left the cinema, and not because it was  December or the air conditioning was on...The movie is set during Cold War and that's exactly the feeling you get by seeing it: two nations on the hedge of what could have possibly been a nuclear war.

The movie is long, it lasts more than 2 hours, but you barely feel it: the story is catching, the actors are great and the direction's fluid. The only thing I didn't like was at the beginning, when the FBI agents are waiting for Abel to make a mistake and reveal he was a spy...since there ware no dialogues, it was a bit slow and boring.

I loved everything about Tom Hanks' character: he's loyal, dedicated to the law and his family, but can be also funny and careless. The dialogues between Donovan and Abel are brilliant, they show how smart both of them are, so...Well done, screenwriters! 

Ranking : 4/5

Photo credits: all around the internet