It’s easy to see why Steven Spielberg jumped at the chance to film Matt Sharman’s script based on the true story of how insurance lawyer James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks). During the Cold War, he first defended the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) in 1957 then – after his efforts to spare Abel the electric chair – agreed to facilitate the exchange between him and the captured American pilot Gary Powers on Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge (the bridge of the title) which in reality happened five years later.

Donovan is a true movie hero, in the mould of Henry Fonda or James Stewart, reluctant at the start when handed his mission but then overcome by a dogged refusal to give up, against the advice and emotional pressure of family, workmates and the fickle American public. There are elements in Donovan’s character of both Oskar Schindler and Police Chief Brody in JAWS, taking on the Nazis and the shark against impossible odds.

Donovan is a true movie hero, in the mould of Henry Fonda or James Stewart, reluctant at the start when handed his mission but then overcome by a dogged refusal to give up…

So Spielberg is on home turf, and given the solid likability of Hanks (helped along by some wry dialogue presumably added by Ethan and Joel Coen) there is an enormously satisfying sense of being in safe hands as the story unfolds at its own pace: from the advance trailers much more of a gung-ho action picture might be expected, highlighting the shooting down of the U-2 spy plane and the equally spectacular erection of the Berlin Wall. However, this would be to overlook the crucially important presence of Rylance as Abel, as watchful and opaque as his Thomas Cromwell in WOLF HALL, firstly going about his espionage business in (an impeccably-recreated) Brooklyn then entering into a complex relationship with Donovan, politely refusing to give anything away, deflecting questions with an ambiguous ‘Would it help?’

Intercut between the cat-and-mouse jailhouse and courtroom scenes are vivid reminders of the current political climate, schoolchildren (Donovan’s among them) swearing allegiance to the Flag before being instructed in the notorious ‘Duck and Cover’ anti-nuclear attack routines, illustrated by dire warnings about the Red Menace. Feelings which spill over into the neighbourhood, when the Constitution-defending Donovan nevertheless has his house attacked in a drive-by shooting (while his daughter watches the frothy 77 SUNSET STRIP on TV). Naturally this only stiffens Donovan’s resolve, troubled though he is – and this really is Henry Fonda territory – by his frightened kids and fretting wife Mary (Amy Ryan, struggling to hold her own in what is literally a Boy’s Own movie).

Intercut between the cat-and-mouse jailhouse and courtroom scenes are vivid reminders of the current political climate…

Once Donovan has (albeit unsuccessfully) defended his client before the Supreme Court in a speech worthy of Atticus Finch, it’s only a short hop – in movie terms anyway – to a snowy Berlin where the Russians, interrogators of Gary Powers, and the East Germans as they are now with the building of the Wall, are locked in a political battle of their own. Among the victims is American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), arrested as he tries to get his girlfriend and her father across to the West before the last concrete blocks are put in place. Donovan’s determination to include Pryor in the exchange of Powers for Abel leads to the dynamic third act of BRIDGE OF SPIES as Donovan is delivered into the hands of East German bureaucracy and led he knows not where through Berlin’s wintry and venomously blockaded streets as the deadline for the exchange approaches. Here as in the rest of the film the casting is exemplary, from the pinch-faced border guards and petty officials to Sebastian Koch as the Stasi’s expensively-dressed fixer Wolfgang Vogel, as smoothly untrustworthy as the head of Donovan’s plushly-furnished law firm, played by Alan Alda who it’s fair to say has cornered the market in elderly duplicity.

At one point during Rudolf Abel’s incarceration – the passage of time illustrated by a bulky transistor radio – he’s seen listening to Shostakovich whose music, often written under duress, wouldn’t have been inappropriate to the soundtrack. As it is Thomas Newman’s swelling strings are kept largely under control before letting rip during the emotive Berlin Wall scenes. Though for the most part Spielberg manages to keep slush at bay: at the end when Donovan’s kids realise that Dad is a hero after all and once-hostile commuters seem about to give him a hug, the moment is spiked by Donovan glimpsing from the train of a gang of teenagers scaling a neighbourhood fence – without, unlike their East German counterparts, running the risk of being shot in the back.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JnC2LIJdR0