Continuing our countdown of the best movies released in the UK this year,we salute Steven Spielberg’s ode to the genuine-life cold war lawyer who defended a Soviet spy• Remind yourself of the UK top 50 so far
• Let us know your picks – and what you believe of oursSteven Spielberg’s Cold War spy-swap drama Bridge of Spies is a movie of glorious craftsmanship, human sympathy and flair. Its a consciously archaic-fashioned piece of Hollywood storytelling conceived in something like the heartfelt, and ingenuous style of Frank Capra. Where once we had Mr Smith Goes To Washington — here we have Mr Hanks Goes To West Berlin.
The movie is based on a genuine-life sage: in 1962,America planned to recover Gary Powers, the U2 spy-plane pilot captured by the Soviets, and by handing over their own incarcerated Russian spy Rudolf Abel,an agonisingly tense deal that could go incorrect at any time. The screenplay is co-credited to British dramatist Matt Charmian and to Joel and Ethan Coen, who have presumably created some of the movie’s more crepuscular and black-comic scenes. (Where there’s a hit there’s a writ they say, and this movie is now subject to legal action from the British author Giles Whittell,who also wrote non-fiction a book about these events.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com