The brilliance of Tom Hanks combines with stunning direction by Steven Spielberg to turn a story with a fairly predictable outcome into a mouth-watering Cold War drama.
The moment that US spy plane pilot Frances Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) enters the movie is the moment that anyone with a cursoryknowledge of Soviet-American history will realise how this absorbing tale ends. But it doesn't matter because Bridge of Spies is such a master class of film making, with a compelling twist involving stranded US student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers).
Hanks plays James Donovan, a real-life New York insurance lawyer with a background in World War II espionage and the Nuremburg trials of leading Nazis.
He is chosen for the unenviable task of defending Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy arrested in New York in 1957 at the height of the Cold War when an exchange of nuclear missiles looked a distinct possibility.
Abel, played by Mark Rylance, presents such an absorbing character that you almost want Donovan's gritty and spirited defence to succeed.
Do not expect an action thriller. Do expect a great true story that exudes quality, thanks to a well crafted screenplay, great direction and superb acting, particularly by Hanks who fits the role like a favourite leather glove.
The film also combines the bleakness of an imminent armageddon with an expert rendering of Berlin at the time when the Communist-dominated eastern side of the city put up a wall to stop citizens fleeing to less austere West Berlin.
Bridge of Spies is well worth the money and does not suffer from shrinking down to a small screen in the lounge.
