A great spy drama.

Rating: 10/10 (6 December 2015)

I'm 70 and I seem recall as a kid at least once getting under my desk to protect us from nuclear bombs. But I think only once. Too young to know of Russian Spy Rudolf Abel; but I clearly remember Gary Powers U-2 incident and the subsequent exchange of Abel and Powers.
I thought the drama taut, well crafted, suspenseful. Interesting characterization of Abel (Mark Rylance) and Donovan (Tom Hanks). (I refuse to say 'great acting'--that is why they get paid millions.) The film conveyed the greyness of those years--the greyness not only in America but in East Berlin. The sense of being slightly depressed about something--though in East Berlin there was lots to be depressed about.
Donovan challenges Abel, he challenges the court case, he challenges the CIA, the US Military, the East German thugs, the East German politburo. And in the end--he gets the release of not only Gary Powers but an American economics student--Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers)-- who got himself captured when he crossed into East Berlin. And crossing into East Berlin should not be seen as some easy cross the border jaunt; it was fraught with peril of being arrested as a spy on trumped up charges and incarcerated and interrogated mercilessly for any length of time. So Donovan crossing into East Berlin took huge guts and risks.
I was never certain of who or what Wolfgang Vogel (Sebastian Koch) was--was he an embassy functionary or an East German Communist Party Apparatchik? In the end, he clearly was not to be trusted.
Rudolf Abel was a Russian Spy and in the movie he aids Donovan or tolerates Donovan in being certain that Pryor is released as well as Powers--something the Russians agreed to by releasing Pryor at Checkpoint Charlie while Powers and Abel are exchanged at the Glienicke Bridge.
While in the movie, Donovan is portrayed as an insurance attorney recruited for Abel's criminal defense, and later recruited by the CIA Allen Dulles for the prisoner exchange, the film neglects to mention that he was also employed during the war in the OSS (precursor to the CIA). So his experience in the world of espionage was recognized and justifies choice for him in these sensitive assignments. So when he goes to Judge Mortimer W. Byers ((Dakin Matthews) to request Abel be sentenced to time in prison because the US may need him for tactical negotiation for a future potential prisoner exchange, he is working from some insight into the world of espionage. The film fails to make Donovan's relationship to this world of espionage clear.
There was a sort of Walter Mitty moment in the movie, when at the end, his family learns from the television news that Donovan was in reality a special Envoy to President Kennedy in a top secret mission. How cool is that: every child wants their father to be a secret agent in reality. It was just one light touch among several that gave the spy thriller an added dimension.
For escapist drama but well grounded in reality, it was really a great movie--well worth the time. And apparently the film hews pretty closely to actual events--given the inevitable need for film drama.