Bridge of Spies feels like two movies laid end-to-end, but both are so deftly handled that the divide hardly matters. The movie’s two faces also give director Steven Spielberg a chance to explore his dual interests: using history to comment on the present day, and executing old-school suspense.
The first section is the true saga of a New York lawyer, James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks), who was plucked from his profitable private practice to defend a Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), in the late 1950s. Abel is obviously guilty of espionage—but not, as Donovan carefully points out, of treason—but what pricks Spielberg’s interest is the way Donovan is ostracized for performing a constitutional task.