Cast: This isn't the cluster of stars that Lincoln was. There's Tom Hanks at the center. Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Jesse Plemons, and Amy Ryan you may recognize. Beyond that, it's a bunch of character actors or Russian and German actors, for obvious reasons.
Plot: It's 1957. James B. Donovan (Hanks) is an American lawyer chosen to represent in court a Soviet spy (Rylance) captured by the FBI. Because of this association, he is later chosen to coordinate a prisoner exchange between the US and the USSR and East Germany: the Soviet spy for an American fighter pilot and an American student.
Thoughts:
I can't figure out what to make of this movie. It's a pretty simple story, but the idiosyncrasies of a Coen Brothers script are there. A lot more is going on than the movie covers. Parts of it are shot almost like Spielberg took clips from another movie entirely. That's how everything with the fighter pilot is, for example. The film is only concerned with anything that informs James Donovan's story. Anything there not involving him directly ties back to him eventually.
It's a story of quiet heroism. Donovan is a good man. He does good things because that's what a good man does. There's no moment when the audience wonders if he'll do the right thing. He's not seeking attention either. He's a hero. It's that simple. I found this very refreshing. That kind of character isn't popular in modern cinema. In fact, Spielberg is about the only filmmaker I can think of who regularly has heroes of this ilk. I don't always need this character in a movie, but it's nice to know I can find him when needed.
This is Tom Hanks' movie. It's hard to say who the next biggest character even is (Rylance as the spy, maybe). Hanks gives a very good performance that's not at all flashy. He's there to give a human scale to the relations between super powers during the Cold War. He maintains a very tricky balance of never going big yet still injecting life into things. All I'm saying is that after the 2013 Saving Mr. Banks/Captain Phillips double-snub, the Oscars owe him a nomination for this.
Mark Rylance is quite engaging as well. The movie's not concerned with knowing much about him. Half of what he says is just a running joke. But by the end, I really connected with him. He has that same exhausted quality that Richard Jenkins has and it works very well.
Elephant in the Room: How many people does Jesse Plemons kill? Plemons has a history of killing people on screen, whether as Landry/Lance on Friday Night Lights, Todd on Breaking Bad, or [spoiler alert] Ed on Fargo. To be fair, that's all TV work. Other than a few aliens in Battleship, he doesn't kill much on film. That said, I'll leave it up to you to go out an see if "Jesse Plemons kills someone" is the new "Sean Bean always dies".
To Sum Things Up:
This isn't a vital movie in the way that much of Stephen Speilberg's work is. This is more like "he's trying something out" and the end result is still a well-made movie. Your love of Tom Hanks will determine how much you need to see this.
Side Thought: Stephen Spielberg there's a number of great movie marathons that you can do with but one I like the idea of what I'm dubbing "Good Man Trilogy" of Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and Bridge of Spies.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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