Tom Hanks stars in Steven Spielberg’s fact-inspired Cold War drama, from a script co-written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers. In 1957, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance in an Oscar-winning performance) is arrested in Brooklyn and charged with being a Soviet spy. It’s imperative he’s seen to be given a fair trial, so the American bar committee nominate James B Donovan (Hanks) – who distinguished himself prosecuting Nazi officials at the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II – to defend Abel. Despite now specialising in insurance, having done no criminal work for years and being unenthusiastic at the prospect of a case he can’t win but which guarantees him notoriety among sections of the American public, Donovan resignedly agrees to do his patriotic duty. Predictably he loses. But his defence is good enough to commute Abel’s death penalty to a life sentence. Meanwhile, US Airforce pilot Frances Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is recruited by the CIA to fly the U2 spy plane. And when his mission goes wrong and he’s captured by the Soviets, the US government turns to Donovan to attempt to negotiate Powers’ release.
Bridge of Spies
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