Spielberg story-telling at its best - ****

With the working title 'St. James Place', writer Matt Chairman pitched his material to Steven Spielberg who accepted the project as producer and director.   In May 2014, Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance was cast as the two leads.  With some revisions from the Coen brothers, filming began in September.

This movie whose story is based on actual events during the cold war is about an insurance lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) who was tasked to defend a Russian spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance).  Found guilty on three accounts, Abel was sentenced to 30 years in prison with the thought that someday he may be used as a bargaining chip with Russia.  That 'someday' did not take long when an American pilot is caught flying on Soviet airspace taking shots of industrial sites.  Donovan was again tapped to negotiate the exchange, and so he went to East Berlin and got caught up in cold war's absurd political situation.

You know a movie would be good when two very credible artists connive to make a film.  Both Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have gained god-like Hollywood status to be able to choose projects that they find worthy.  And truly this story is worth telling.  So I am watching the movie and here I see someone I don't know playing a Russian spy and thought they really casted him well.  Mark Rylance portrayal is spot on.  He gets into his character and remained consistent up to the end.  Then I saw Alan Alda and thought, 'wow this
must be some important piece of material'.  It was just a formidable ensemble of actors led of course by no less then Mr.Tom Hanks himself, whose portrayal of James Donovan is witty, sensitive and serious all at the same time.

But what is truly amazing about this movie is the way the story is told.  It is just one event after another and you just get caught up in the story, but it lulls a bit, though I am guessing that has something to do with the way the spy negotiations were going.  Also, using tools like parallelisms and symbol isms to relay an intrinsic messages that may make you think that this is Spielberg's most important work after Schindler's List but of course there were others that came after as well.