Lukewarm Coldwar Drama by Spielberg with many painful grimaces by Hanks

Rating: 4/10 (8 December 2015)

BRIDGE of SPIES, Spielberg // Starring Tom Hanks in Lukewarm Coldwar drama.
Summary: Uninspired Spielberg Mountain from Molehill with pitiful Hanks in Pain throughout. Viewed at Colisée cinema, Marrakesh, Friday Dec. 4, 2015. By Alex Deleon. With so many intriguing Cold War subjects up for grabs one wonders what made Steven Spielberg choose this relatively minor Cold War incident as the subject matter of his latest directorial effort.
The background: In the summer of 1960 an American high altitude spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and pilot Gary Powers who bailed out and survived was interned by the Russians. At about the same time a big time Russian spy with US citizenship was arrested and put on trail for treason in the USA. Idealistic New York attorney James Donovan (Hanks) defends him in court and is then recruited by the CIA to facilitate an exchange of this spy for captured U2 spy plane pilot Powers in Berlin. The exchange took place in divided Berlin on Feb. 20, 1962 at the height of the Kennedy administration six months prior to the Cuban Missiles crisis.
The foreground: The result: a big disappointment with a heavy handed script by the Coen Brothers and some very bad acting in a long tedious dragged out attempt to elevate this subject to the level of Greek tragedy with Tom Hanks pulling slightly different variations of a pained face in every scene he's in, which is most of the picture. Greek tragedy this is not, although we are compelled to feel a little sorry for Hanks when his steadfast defense of the American Constitution is met with hate, derision, and even death threats from his fellow Americans, and then he has to hide his dangerous spy exchange trip from his own family when he volunteers to go to Berlin on a thankless top secret mission to ease cold war tensions and save an American college student stranded in East Berlin into the bargain. En somme:to sum up --
From The combination Spielberg/Hanks and the setting in Berlin, a city I know so well, I expected much more. This turned out to be a routine, almost soppy Hanks performance and a very routine uninspired turn by Spielberg at the helm. First of all I remember the era of the film very well and it did not seem to me at the time to be nearly the momentous event it is built up to be in this film. If lawyer Donavan (Hanks) was in the news for a while it certainly wasn't a very big while, and the spy exchange at the bridge was merely seen as a minor event in much more momentous cold war Events of the time such as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1962 and The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. I remember thinking at the time that it was nice for our side to admit for once that We also Spy and thought that might be the ball Spielberg would run with. But the mawky family drama we are given, and the overall talkiness with little backup action, plus the building up of the the exchange on the Berlin bridge in freezing winter weather to an event of Superbowl proportions simply does not have the drama we are supposed to think it had. Overall, a dud that fails to go off in a stagy unrecognizable Berlin. Recommended only for die-hard Tom Hankniks who sympathize with Mr. next-door America, no matter what he does. As for the Cold War political background -- Google tells it much better. (Google, Gary Powers, U2 incident) Alex, Marrakesh.
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