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Historical Movie Review: Bridge of Spies (2015)

Posted on 19 October 2015 by The Tactical Hermit

As a student and history buff of all things Cold War, I  had been looking forward to this movie for some time. Although I cannot say I had I had high hopes, since it has been a while since a decent Cold War era movie has been made that is even memorable. But seeing that it was Directed by Steven Spielberg and it starred Tom Hanks in the lead role, I figured with Speilberg’s eye for detail in historical dramas (Munich, Schindler’s List, Band of Brothers, Pacific, Saving Private Ryan) and Tom Hanks excellent dramatic acting chops, it would definitely be worth a try.

This movie is a sharp departure from the typical Speilberg film; instead of a story about a single episode in history, it chronicles FOUR distinct,(but linked) episodes in the History of the Early Cold War.The 1957 Arrest by the F.B.I of KGB Spy Rudolph Abel, The shooting down and capture of U2 Spy Plane Pilot, Gary Powers in 1960 by the Soviets, The arrest and imprisonment in East Berlin in 1961 of American student Frederick Pryor by the Stasi, and the Negotiation for, and Eventual trade for all three parties by American Insurance Lawyer, James Donovan that same year.

This departure from the standard Spielberg film formula can be attributed to the screenplay being co-written by two other dramatic film titans: Ethan and Joel Coen whose films such as Fargo, O’ Brother Where Art Thou, No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Millers Crossing and Spies Like Us show a diverse talent for the dramatic, the violent, the insanely comical and the profound. As far as comical, the film has it’s moments without detracting from the serious nature of the drama. Hanks natural leaning toward comedy (Watch the “before he was a star” spy spoof “The Man with One Red Shoe” to see what I mean) makes the light-hearted comical scenes seem very natural and relaxed.

Before we go any further, Let me warn all you fellow Cold War Espionage Spy buffs: This IS NOT a Spy movie. This is a historical drama about some significant events in the early years of the Cold War. You need to be clear about that going into the film, because the previews, at least in my opinion, were a tad misleading in that regard. There is some spycraft in the early parts of the film, such as before and during when KGB spy Abel is arrested (The Hollow Nickel Case), but that is about it.

I will also tell you, there is almost no action scenes in the movie, save the scene where Gary Powers is shot down in his U2 over Russia (which is amazing btw). That being said, a large part of his film is dialogue...LOTS OF DIALOGUE. After all, the crux of the story is about an Insurance Lawyer negotiating the release of two Americans in exchange for a Soviet Spy, so if historical “dialogue” in the context of the cold war is not your thing, you may find these parts a tad dry, but I highly urge you to stick with the movie until the end.

But for all you purebred History buffs, present company included, this movie is replete with really “cool” scenes, from the spycraft of KGB agent Able with The Hollow Nickel to the covert meeting of Four young Air Force pilots in a seedy motel with the CIA, to Tom Hanks character, James Donovan, meeting with one of the patriarchs of the CIA, Director Allen Dulles, to the spot-on East and West Berlin scenes (The building of the Berlin Wall is particularly awesome).

Lastly, I wanted to quote an article Time did on the movie to sum up this review:

In order to understand our own times, we need to be able to understand earlier periods as well. Bridge of Spies provides a reasonably accurate portrayal of the case, but its portrayal of the late 1950s—designed by Spielberg and a team of writers who include the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan—appeals more to the prejudices of our own time than it would the reality of the world back then. The image of an intolerant anti-Communist citizenry and a hopelessly evil U.S. government has been popular for decades, and we seem eager to believe it. Perhaps that makes sense: in a post-9/11, post-PATRIOT Act, post-Snowden world, the idea that the CIA might be out to trample American ideals in order to track an upstanding citizen, supposedly in the service of keeping us safe, is completely feasible. But a half-century ago, despite the very real excesses of the CIA abroad, Americans believed more deeply in the Constitution and the American criminal justice system than they do today.

Donovan, a well-off insurance lawyer in New York who had worked with the OSS during the Second World War and took part in the Nuremberg prosecutions, represented much of what was best about the 1950s. We all know that they were the peak of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but today we forget all too easily how deeply Americans like him believed not only in the justice of our cause, but in the need to rely on our principles as perhaps our most important weapon in the struggle. From the moment that Donovan took Abel’s case, he was determined to give his client the best defense he could to prove that the American legal system was fair to everyone, even its enemies. Donovan made this point bluntly again and again during the case, and never more so than in his argument on appeal before the Supreme Court. Donovan argued that Abel’s conviction should be reversed because the FBI, in violation of the Constitution, had searched his hotel room without a warrant, failed to arraign him, and held him incommunicado at a military base for more than a week in an effort to get him to “turn” against the USSR. “By the use of the evidence obtained through this illegal search and seizure,” he told the court, “this man has been convicted of a capital crime. The only place criminal proceedings based on such practices occur is in police states like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.” In the end, he lost the appeal by a single vote, 5-4.

Ultimately, I think all CO’s should see this movie, even if historical dramas are not your thing. As the Time article suggest, To understand the present, we need to understand the past.

Stay Alert, Stay Armed and Stay Dangerous!

 

 

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