The Pen vs The Sword

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2016)

East and West Berliners were geographically neighbors, yet forty years of geo-political disparity transmuted these people, often time lovers, into strangers. There were, contrary to popular propaganda, a few shots fired here and there. This political thriller illustrated some examples where a Soviet surface to air missile hit a state of the art US spy plane and it's pilot down in Soviet controlled East Germany. Tom Hanks conveyed the duties of prisoner exchange negotiator steadfastly. The script had copious dialogue for each facet of the multi-faceted and convergent story lines. The climatic conclusion conveyed the limits of extenuated cooperation amongst the puerile East Germans, the imperious Soviets, and the desperate US.