Written by / 10/19/2015 / No comments / , , , , ,

STEVE SPIELBERG DIRECTS TOM HANKS IN 'BRIDGE OF SPIES'

year: 2015 director: Steven Spielberg Starring: Tom Hanks
Cold War thrillers aren't always very thrilling, and mostly rely on mellow, page-turning espionage led by tons of dialogue.

Thus Steven Spielberg creatively glides through the real life story of James B. Donovan...

Who was a very reluctant insurance lawyer hired to take on an inconvenient, controversial, potentially dangerous yet legitimately lawful case in 1957, an era when most movies have American bigwigs, from the FBI to the CIA to all things Military, behaving worse than demonic mobsters.

Rating: ***1/2
This particular vehicle is really a simple tale that, despite making the accused, kindhearted, soft-spoken Russian Spy seem a bit too perfect compared to his riled-up U.S. captors, Hanks fits everything together, not playing the role like a modern progressive stuck in a one-dimensional decade while somehow reflectively "knowing better," as happens in a lot of post-WWII history flicks: he really seems (and looks) like he's from that particular era, learning while moving from one semi intriguing obstacle to the next.

If it's said that BRIDGE OF SPIES is a slow and/or boring motion picture, well, there is one scene in a fast moving car, and Spielberg gets his war-action on when a spy plane is shot down with a last-minute parachute...

And that pilot (plus an added young man, not very fleshed-out but representing "the future" educational system) is a possible trade-off for Hanks' Russian client, originally sentenced in what plays out like a dressed-up Kangaroo court, becoming a sort of older, wise mentor while sharing a Ben Kingsley/Liam Neeson SCHINDLER'S LIST style chemistry with Hanks: needing few spoken words to genuinely bond, and, eventually, when our hero goes from America to the divided Germany,  there's never a feeling of serious, impending danger. But his determined discomfort is palpable enough to drive the story of an otherwise common man hired for the last thing he wanted to be part of, and, thinking on his toes, makes for an interesting "character" in a nicely flowing Cold War flick that's perfectly lukewarm... feeling like it intentionally settles for pretty good instead of Oscar-bait greatness, and in that, succeeds.
Share This Post :
Tags : , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

All Time Popular

Featured Post

LANCE GUEST WITH ROBERT PRESTON IN 'THE LAST STARFIGHTER'

Title: THE LAST STARFIGHTER Year: 1984 Rating: ***1/2 The connection of THREE AMIGOS, GALAXY QUEST and TROPIC THUNDER... of actors thinking ...

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM
Movie Reviews, Interviews, Articles and Pop Culture from White Heat to Blue City

RIP ACTOR KEN HUTCHISON

TOTAL HITS

Popular Trending

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE
RANDOM QUOTE: "He was unique; and he was dead." Craig Stevens, Peter Gunn

FILM NOIR & NEO NOIR CRIME

FAVORITES SHORTLIST

1)OTLEY 2)HELL IS A CITY 3)ROBBERY 4)THE FEARMAKERS 5)CANYON PASSAGE 6)VIOLENT SATURDAY 7)HOT CARS 8)JUNGLE STREET 9)THE CROWDED SKY 10)THE ROARING TWENTIES 11) ANATOMY OF A MURDER 12)CALCULATED RISK 13)SWEENEY TWO 14)RAIDERS FROM BENEATH THE SEA 15)HARDCORE 16)THE BREAK 17)WHITE HEAT 18)AL CAPONE 19)THE SERGEANT 20)FALLEN ANGEL 21)SHARKS' TREASURE 22)THE ASPHALT JUNGLE 23)ASH WEDNESDAY 24)THE SYSTEM 25)AIR PATROL 26)THE STONE KILLER 27)SANDS OF THE KALAHARI 28)WILLIAM CONRAD'S BRAINSTORM 29)RIOT 30)THE MAN FROM LARAMIE FAVORITE ACTORS 1)DANA ANDREWS 2)JAMES CAGNEY 3)STANLEY BAKER 4)MARLON BRANDO 5)JACK NICHOLSON 6) CHARLES BRONSON 7)BURT REYNOLDS 8)WILLIAM LUCAS 9)TOM COURTENAY 10)GENE HACKMAN DIRECTORS 1)JACQUES TOURNEUR 2)RICHARD FLEISCHER 3)VAL GUEST 4)STANLEY KUBRICK 5)OTTO PREMINGER 6)ORSON WELLES 7)JOHN GUILLERMAN 8)JOHN LANDIS 9)JOHN CARPENTER 10)MICHAEL WINNER

BRITISH NEW WAVE CINEMA

RARITIES AND EXPLOITATION

HAMMER HORROR & THRILLER

Popular This Month

CHARLES BRONSON CINEMA

CINEMA OF DANA ANDREWS

WESTERN GENRE REVIEWS

PEAKING INTO THE SIXTIES

KICKING IN THE EIGHTIES

TALES AND REFLECTIONS

REVVING THE SEVENTIES

Most Popular Last Year