Critics say Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance shine in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Bridge of Spies’

Reviews are in for “Bridge of Spies,” the fact-based Cold War film directed by Steven Spielberg, and the critics are raving while noting the film’s particular resonance with contemporary politics.

The film stars Tom Hanks as attorney James B. Donovan, an insurance lawyer pulled out of his comfort zone when he is drafted to defend Soviet spy Col. Rudolf Abel (played by Mark Rylance). He is further put to the test when he is then called on to help negotiate the exchange of captured military pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) for Abel.

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Critics have taken to the film’s formula, a combined legal procedural and Cold-War thriller, written by Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen, earning “Bridge of Spies” a 92% certified fresh rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.

In his review for The Times, Kenneth Turan describes “Bridge of Spies” as Spielberg’s “tribute to a gifted amateur, a smooth entertainment with a strong but subtle political subtext that’s both potent and unexpected.”

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Kenneth Turan reviews ‘Bridge of Spies’ starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance, directed by Steven Spielberg. Video by Jason H. Neubert.

“Spielberg is so good he makes us forget that ‘Bridge of Spies’ is basically two separate films: one a courtroom drama, the other a spy thriller, with unexpected dark humor thrown into the bargain,” Turan says. “Storytelling this proficient is never something we see every day.”

Turan says Donovan is “shrewdly played” by Hanks, especially in the latter part of the film when the focus is shifted to Powers and his experience as a prisoner of the Soviets, a situation that is further complicated by some East Germans.

“It’s in the Berlin part of the film that Hanks’ performance as Donovan takes on greater idiosyncrasy and heft,” he says.

Although Donavan is initially unhappy about representing Abel, he truly believes in the Constitution, and “one of the politically interesting aspects of the film is that most other people in power are simply mouthing pieties and aren’t interested in the slightest in constitutional guarantees,” Turan writes. “The post 9/11 relevance is hard to miss.”

The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis similarly notes that “like some of Mr. Spielberg’s other recent movies, notably ‘Lincoln’ and ‘Munich,’ [‘Bridge of Spies’] is a meticulously detailed period piece that revisits the anxieties of the past while also speaking to those of the present.”

The film is full “of seeming opposites who are set up as mirrors of each other: Abel and Donovan, Abel and Powers and, of course, the Soviet Union and the United States” for the purpose of “posing philosophical questions and positing legal truths.”

“With its scenes of prisoner abuse, arguments about American justice and all the cameras that telegraph the emergence of the surveillance state,” Dargis writes, “ ‘Bridge of Spies’ suggests that the Cold War has its own twin in the war on terror.”

Bob Mondello of NPR also observes how “Screenwriter Matt Charman ... director Steven Spielberg, [and] script polishers Joel and Ethan Coen, makes sure you hear the echoes of our own era in [‘Bridge of Spies’].”

Mondello reflects that although technology has changed, “our justice system still struggles to deal fairly with foreigners we regard as enemies, and shortcuts are sometimes proposed — and resisted — just as they were then.”

For Mondello, the highlights of this “solidly told and atmospheric” film is “Hanks, and an understated, scene-stealing turn by Mark Rylance as the Soviet spy Abel.”

In her review for the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday also offers praise for Rylance for what she hopes is “a career-making performance.”

“Many viewers may not have heard of Rylance,” Hornaday writes. “But his work in ‘Bridge of Spies’ deserves to be widely recognized as an example of screen acting at its most subtle, poignant and exquisitely calibrated.”

Hornaday also commends Hanks’ performance as “the film’s inspiring lead character” where he “exudes modesty, high principles and simple fairness” with his “trademark humility.”

“Hanks’s aw-shucks charm could easily curdle into smugness here, but Spielberg keeps the self-righteousness to a minimum,” she says.

Brian Truitt of USA Today notes how “ ‘Bridge of Spies’ has so many fascinating personalities” the film easily could have focused on any of the other characters.

“But having it be Donovan’s story is classic Spielberg — the tale of an ordinary dude going to the ends of the Earth to do the right thing,” Truitt says, “is in the same wheelhouse as Daniel Day-Lewis’ 16th president in ‘Lincoln’ and Harrison Ford’s whip-snapping globetrotter in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ ”

Truitt praises Hanks’ turn as the “good-hearted and perseverant lawyer” Donovan.

“Hanks is, as usual, rock solid as Donovan, giving an extra air of humanity to a rookie wading into the rough and murky waters of espionage” writes Truitt.

However, for Truitt, it is Rylance’s performance as Abel that will be a “brilliant revelation” to those unfamiliar with his work.

“Of all of the meaty performances in this Spielberg smorgasbord, Rylance is the one to really savor,” he says.

Twitter: @tracycbrown