4 stars out of 5
I learned a little about captured pilot Francis Gary Powers as a schoolboy, and then I guess his name came up again after the band U2 got famous. But I can’t say I’ve given him a lot of thought since. Honestly, I didn’t even know that this movie was based around the U-2 incident until the Powers character shows up in it. “Oh, inspired by THOSE true events,” I silently thought, as to respect my fellow audience members.
Well, it’s a hell of a story. Yes, a lot of it is negotiations, which maybe doesn’t sound too thrilling to watch. Thankfully, we’ve got top-(no pun intended)flight talent handling things here: Directed by Steven Freaking Spielberg. Starring his fellow war-obsessed buddy Tom Hanks. With a script revised by the Coen brothers, who are possibly my favorite siblings of all time.
Now, you’ve got that word “inspired” by true events, which could be a red flag. But based on what I’ve gleaned from Wikipedia in the minutes before writing this review, they’ve followed history pretty closely. And then I imagine they had to connect the dots where information is still classified or is just unknown. Of much interest to me is Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who — though traded for Powers, and a grad student to be named later — I don’t recall getting a whole lot of ink in my textbook. He is expertly portrayed by Mark Rylance: reserved and sardonic, but with a definite humanity seeping through.
The recreation of his U.S. trial certainly has relevance in our post-9/11 world: What rights do foreign prisoners deserve? Is a fair hearing remotely possible? Spielberg contrasts the treatment of Abel with the much harsher way that Powers is handled back in the USSR. (You don’t know how lucky you are, boy!) But in the wake of Gitmo, who can really take the moral high ground?
The filmmakers are all products of the Cold War era, so most everything here rings true, from the duck-and-cover drills at home, to the greyness of the Soviet World, to the symbolic and actual delineation of the brand-new Berlin Wall. Much of the action is set in East Berlin, so Spielberg gets a little WWII atmosphere in here too — a German soldier even asks an American for his “papers.” If you’re wondering, the Coens don’t deliver any of their trademark zaniness (we’ll have to wait for Hail, Caesar!), but I do think they helped make the dialogue that much more realistic.
Hanks is solid as ever as James Donovan, the lawyer assigned to defend Abel. He takes his job seriously even though the government really doesn’t want him to. The terrific Amy Ryan, as his wife, doesn’t get a whole lot to do, but she delivers a look toward the end of the film that absolutely makes her casting worthwhile. It’s good to see Jesse Plemons, a.k.a. Landry from Friday Night Lights, getting more and more work (this time as one of Powers’ fellow flyboys); interestingly he’s also in this season of Fargo, executive-produced by the Joel and Ethan Coen. I’m always happy to see Herc from The Wire, and Alan Alda does a nice, restrained job as the head of Donovan’s law firm. Oh, and the dog-killing guy from The Leftovers teaches pilots how to fly the U-2.
So, good stuff all around: story, script, performances, cinematography. Steven Spielberg may not be the most artful director around — for better or for worse, he’s the eternal poster boy for the Big Hollywood Film — but man oh man, he is still the absolute best at endings. The whole time he’s landing the film (pun maybe intended), Spielberg was really “getting me in the feels” as the young people say, one moment after another. And then that “here’s what happened afterward” text comes up at the end — wow, I lost it. Good job, fellas.
Jack Silbert, curator