a very odd film

Rating: 6/10 (13 December 2015)

... but not necessarily a very entertaining one.
First -- and this is the key to my review --- semi-biographical films documenting real events do not have to be dull, or tedious, or dark, or lack connection with the viewer.
Look at PAWN SACRIFICE, for example, recently reviewed by this reviewer and still very much top of mind.
And then we have BRIDGE OF SPIES, a two-plus hour opus that one suspects never would have been greenlighted without you-know-who as the director and you-know-who playing the lead.
Presumably we are meant to honor the main character's humanity as he struggles against a corrupt (or possibly insane) system to do the right thing...? If this was the intent, then even a yeoman effort from Hanks fails to make this character connect with the viewer, to resonate. In spite of it all, he comes across as a wildcard pick in a game which he never really understood.
And if the events of the last few years are any indication -- this written in 2015 -- it was a game the rest of us never understood either.