Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda
Genre: Historical drama/Thriller
Duration: 141min
Rating: 6/10
How about a movie that trades a captured Russian spy for an American one? Yes, it happened, at least in this thriller where during the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers’ only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan, recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man’s freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel, the convicted spy whom Donovan defended in court.
Thumbs Up
You will like it because of the cast and the director who manages to make the act of negotiating exciting, with witty dialogue, making it funnier than you think. The opening scene that features the capture of Rudolph has little dialogue but is one of the film’s most exciting moments. It is as if Spielberg is flaunting his prowess with the series of quick-sketch scenes of Abel painting, wordlessly receiving a telephone call and retrieving an encoded message in a hollowed-out nickel. And the result is worth it.
Thumbs Down
At the expense of sounding like a broken record, the film does a great disservice to the non-fiction book by Giles Whittell which goes by the same title. While the movie tells Powers’ story, it leaves out the other two subjects of the book; William Fisher, a KGB agent captured by the FBI in New York City and Frederic Pryor, an American graduate student who was arrested and mistaken for a spy in East Germany. You cannot help but feel a lack of balance in the unveiling events.
Verdict
Do not expect any suspense and I would advise against watching it, if you have read the book.
