impeccable representation of THAT America

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2015)

A Cold War thriller starring a Tom Hanks seeming inexplicable. Steven Spielberg's technique is to pack intrigue and movement into every shot, to fill his characters and story with fidelity to the era's realpolitik. It's a movie without much glamor and it's enjoyable though there's no impetus or pace. Spielberg can't animate a Coen brothers script combining espionage and court room. 141 minutes is an excessive runtime but the story successfully bets the house on the interplay between an all-American archetype and a reserved but fragile traitor looking like a bank clerk. All these characters are perfect and that's enough in a film built on legal conversation.