Good movie, long but never seems long.

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2016)

Watched it on DVD from our local public library.
This movie has special significance to me, I was a teenager during the approximate 5-year period this movie is set, about 1957 through about 1962. I remember the news when Powers was shot down in the U2 spy plane over Russia and the cold war propaganda it generated.
In this Spielberg movie, "inspired" by true events, Tom Hanks is insurance lawyer James B. Donovan. There is an arrest of a suspected Russian spy and the government asks Donovan to be his defense lawyer, allegedly to show the world that even a suspected spy would get proper due process. But it was clear (at least the way this script is written) that all that was wanted was a quick conviction.
A critical move was to talk the judge into giving the spy a life sentence instead of death, he reasoned that maybe the spy would eventually talk, but even if he didn't maybe there would be a future opportunity to use him in an exchange.
That opportunity came in the early 1960s when Powers was flying a high- altitude U2 photo mission over Russia but was shot down. After that the government asks Donovan to try to negotiate a prisoner swap, to get Powers back. This required him to travel to East Germany as the Berlin wall was being constructed.
There is a lot of tension and close calls but the mission is accomplished, also with the release of a young 25-yr-old student who did nothing wrong but was studying Economics in Germany.
Surely there are some things fabricated but overall it is a nicely entertaining movie based on real people and real events.