Watched the Movie Bridge of Spies

Last year I saw preview after preview on TV of the new Tom Hanks film, Bridge of Spies.  Already acquainted with the infamous U-2 incident of 1960, I felt inclined to watch it eventually...but never got around to the theater.  Well, I did make it out there once, but there was that new Star Wars movie...

No problem...last week Melissa, Rebecca, Will and I sat down one evening and watched Bridge of Spies, which we had rented from Redbox.  Not exactly the theater, but then again it was convenient to be able to pause it from time to time.  Already knowing where the story was heading, I had expected to see a re-creation of an early-sixties East Europe, but I was stunned at the visual effects nonetheless.  After all, under Soviet domination, East Germany was treated in a much more punitive manner following World War II and many of its buildings, fifteen years after war's end, still looked bombed-out.  Amazing...

Bridge of Spies is a true story, spanning the years 1957-62, focusing on the efforts of American lawyer James Donovan, played by Hanks, as he first defended accused Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on espionage charges and then was asked by the CIA to handle negotiations with the Soviet Union for the release of downed and captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.  The U-2 flights over the U.S.S.R. were done at high-altitude to photograph our Cold War adversary's military activities...Powers's plane was shot down by a missile.  Donovan's task was to get the Soviets to agree to an exchange between convicted Soviet spy Abel and Powers.  The "bridge" in the movie's title refers to a famous bridge connecting East and West Berlin, where the transfer was to take place.  All of this is already known history, but just in case you don't know what happened at the end, I'll leave it for you to discover for yourself.  Just keep in mind that I was impressed by this movie, its direction, acting (especially that of Tom Hanks), and its faithfully true portrayal of the events and settings.  By the way, since much of the movie is set in East Berlin, it was fascinating to watch the building of the Berlin Wall as an event concurrent with the story's plot...

So go watch Bridge of Spies...especially if you have any kind of positive feelings about the old Soviet Union and how its policies affected the people under its control, whether as citizens of that country or of one of the satellite nations it dominated.  Those folks had it really tough back then and I wouldn't wish their ordeals on anyone...