[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Bridge of Spies (2015)

Talky but intelligent and gripping true life story of an American lawyer (Tom Hanks) enlisted to defend a Soviet spy (Mark Rylance) in the American court. As events escalate, a U2 spy plane is shot down over Russia and it's pilot captured meaning the lawyer is unwillingly recruited by the CIA to arrange a swap with the Russian authorities between the pilot and the spy in the inhospitable Eastern sector of Berlin.

Steven Spielberg's film is set in 1957 just as the Berlin wall goes up. The film has an oppressive atmosphere to it with East Berlin seemingly just as dangerous and formidable a place under Russian rule as Paris for example was under the Germans. This especially being the case for Americans as tensions with Russia were constantly rising.

Bridge of Spies, as with many of the best Cold War thrillers isn't an action film, in fact being true to life even less so, as quite obviously additional fictional scenes weren't filmed to give it sense of Bondian adventure and gain extra bums on seats in cinemas.

Is the film recommended? Of course it is. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks don't make poor films. No matter what any deluded soul over in the corner may claim.