Dramatic Wheelhouse of The Cold War

Rating: 8/10 (20 February 2016)

There are theories that the Francis Gary Powers shoot down by USSR had something to do with JFK's eventual death. This movie stays away from that and instead the focus is on how the US made a deal to get Powers back. Based on a true story this movie tries to recreate the drama behind all these events.
It does so without sinking to the depths of action sequences which director Spielberg often directs. He is proving to be a capable drama director as Lincoln proved that just a short time ago. Somehow he brought the Coen's in to write this drama along with Matt Charman. The result is a quite functional drama replete with the feeling of the cold war.
The history lesson here is of value and this film is done totally from the US perspective. This makes sense as the other side was not consulted on this one. The film might even be a little too careful on how it is presented. Tom Hanks is always good though in this film there is not a lot of character development other than Hanks and the Russian Spy (Mark Rylance) Rudolph Abel who is excellent. Hanks wife gets little bits of stuff but not much and even Hank's assistant Doug - Billy Magnussen gets but one or two scenes.
This film is a 2 figure drama, and the main draw back is while they explain how great this accomplishment was, there is very little of why the reasons the negotiations were so successful. This is a timely reminder about a Cold War which is now often forgotten, now that there are hot wars going in several countries today.
This is when diplomacy was practiced and refined so as to achieve positive results. It is solid and well done.