An interesting story but it's one that is imbalanced and poorly structured (minor spoilers)

Rating: 5/10 (29 October 2016)

James Donovan (Tom Hanks) is a lawyer who practices in 'insurance' law, but when he's tasked with defending Soviet spy and traitor Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) it proves to be a case that is not only career-defining for Donovan, but one that is also life-changing as well.
Bridge Of Spies was a film that did hold my interest and have me gripped (up until the conclusion of Abel's trial). However, from this point on, at least as far as I was concerned, it gradually became less and less interesting....
The first problem lies with how the film has been structured - Bridge Of Spies is a film that runs for over 2 hours, but in those 2 + hours the film essentially only has two threads hanging it together (Abel's trial and the exchange of prisoners). What you get here is about 45 minutes of trial and about 90 minutes of Donovan's various conversations with government officials. As I've said the first third of it is OK, but the final two thirds of the picture are repetitive and rather dull and it quickly becomes evident that the prisoner exchange aspect of the story does not necessitate 90 minutes worth of screen time.
The next issue lies with how imbalanced the whole film feels; as I've said great portions of the film are spent on both Abel's trial and on Donovan's wonderful negotiating skills in effecting the prisoner exchanges, but Spielberg and his team of scriptwriters (2 of whom are the Coen brothers) seem to overlook other aspects of the film such as what happened to Abel whilst he was in the US? What happened to Powers when he was captured in Russia? What happened to the American student whilst he was held in Germany? Spielberg sets all these plot points up on an assembly line, but doesn't delve deeper into any of these plot points which at times means that the film lacks depth and insight. I was particularly disappointed that Powers didn't factor as prominently in the story considering that he was quite an important character.
Rylance won an Oscar for his performance here which I personally found a bit puzzling (yes he's OK, but I didn't really see anything brilliant about his performance). Hanks again is OK but he generally gives a fairly stock 'everyman' performance which isn't that big a stretch for him.
When all is said and done I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed by Bridge Of Spies; to me it put too much focus in some areas and not enough focus in other areas which resulted in an imbalanced and poorly structured film. I think the best way to summarise it would be 'interesting subject matter that was poorly delivered.'