Review: ‘Bridge of Spies’ is an absorbing slow burn
Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies,” much like its misunderstood litigator, is a film that plays the long game. This complex Cold War drama soaked in shadows, blues, greys and furrowed brows, is a slow burn that challenges the audience to trust where it’s going.
In this fictional rendering of how a Brooklyn insurance lawyer ended up negotiating a high-stakes prisoner exchange at the height of the Cold War, Spielberg and writers Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen toss details at you, shake them all around and piece them back together in the third act, when the form of the puzzle starts to take shape. Only then can you begin to fully appreciate just how lean and purposeful every moment is.
Suddenly that seemingly random conversation about clients and incidents from the first act isn’t an outlier after all — it means everything. As a first time viewing experience, it’s like not realizing you’ve been playing a game of chess until you’ve already lost.