How Steven Spielberg went from the king of summer thrills to the most boring director in Hollywood is a problem that's perplexed me since I pried my eyes open through Lincoln.
We all know the man can make a great movie. Most of us grew up on a diet of E.T., Jaws and Indiana Jones: spectacular event films with all the entertainment oomph of a theme park roller coaster.
Then, Spielberg hit middle age and wanted to make important films for grown-ups. He made Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan and Munich, but he also made Minority Report, A.I and War of the Worlds – pretty decent action films with big star power.
It looked like Spielberg had come of age with a sharpened skill set and a slightly deeper world view, but the more high-brow Spielberg gets, the duller his movies become...
Inspired by real life events, and apparently a footnote in a JFK biography, Bridge of Spies tells the story of an insurance attorney named James Donovan. A mild-mannered family man plucked from a Norman Rockwell painting, Donovan is as American as the flag itself – and it's a trait he waves at every opportunity, from gratuitous speeches about the American Constitution to his acceptance of a case he is destined to lose.
In the opening act, we watch an older man (Mark Rylance) take his easel on the subway, sit in the park and paint, and very carefully remove a fake nickel from the underside of a park bench. The nickel is hollow, and written on a tiny piece of paper within, is a series of codes.
The man's name is Rudolf Abel, and he's arrested for treason and espionage just a few moments later. Given the year is 1957, Abel's fate looks bleak. The Rosenbergs were executed just four years earlier after being convicted of similar charges, and Abel refuses to cooperate with the CIA, making him delectably disposable.
These days, he'd probably just disappear, but back then, America still believed its own propaganda and the notion of due process. It must appear as if Abel is getting a fair and just trial, which is where James Donovan comes in... It feels a little like a greatest hits album, but the scenes with Mark Rylance have real pop. The two men have an interesting dynamic as ideological warriors who landed on different sides of the battlefield, and it's the only part of the film that has any real traction because everyone else is locked in a freezer of Cold War archetype.
Spielberg capitalizes on the common ground, offering up timely and inspirational rhetoric concerning the importance of due process, Constitutional rights and freedoms, and the American way, but like Lincoln, the big speeches have all the subtlety of a Broadway musical...
Abridged from Ex.Press.com
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