Each collaboration with Spielberg has been a different experience for Hanks, and during their last outing (Catch Me If You Can), Hanks actually asked Spielberg for a role in the film! Hanks and Spielberg were joined by cast members, including Amy Ryan, Mark Rylance, Billy Magnussen, Scott Shepherd and Austin Stowell, along with screenwriter Matt Charman.
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The film’s title refers to Glienicke Bridge, which crosses what was once the borderline between East and West Germany until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
‘Bridge of Spies, ‘ inspired by true events, centers on American lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to help negotiate the release of US pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), who was captured by the Soviet Union after shooting down his spy plane. “That’s what I learned from Tom and Steven”, Magnussen said. Although the film doesn’t match the power and emotion of Spielberg’s greatest films, it still serves as a fun spy thriller with an important message of how people can successfully stand up for what they believe in, even if the opinion of their whole country is against them.
Bridges of Spies opens in theaters October 16. Rather, Bridge of Spies is an interior, introverted kind of movie, composed mainly of scenes of men talking in rooms about big, faraway things.
Despite this, the film’s most captivating performance comes from Rylance who steals every second he is on screen as Abel.
A couple of months ago it was widely reported that Steven Spielberg had predicted that the superhero movie would soon go the way of the Western, sparking various big names to come out in defence of the genre.
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If it weren’t for the band of chiseled Federal Bureau of Investigation agents following him around, no one would ever suspect him of being an agent: He has a warm, round face and stubby, bushy eyebrows that wobble up and down when he talks. But in an era where movies are cut and paced at increasingly faster speeds to appease the shrinking attention spans of audiences, movies such as “Lincoln” and “Bridge of Spies” – commanding films about complicated chapters in history that take their time – stand out. I think Bridge of Spies mostly exists as something smaller, a muted celebration of a few pretty simple values: courage, commitment, compassion.
