By Megan Bianco

Tom Hanks has spent his whole career being compared to Jimmy Stewart, implying that he has all the qualities of a universally beloved movie star. And with his collaboration with Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, his films are indeed similar to Stewart’s iconic films by Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock.

Spielberg and Hanks’ new period drama “Bridge of Spies” is probably the closest thing this generation has yet to see in the way of a Capra/Stewart feature. Not to say the film is a rip-off or forgettable, because Spielberg’s and Hanks’ signatures are all over it, but it has the same idealistic tone while remaining realistic and true to its source.

In 1957-60, the Cold War is well underway between the United States and Soviet Russia. On one calm day in Brooklyn, painter Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is arrested and accused of being a Russian spy. Thinking it will move the trial along quicker, the FBI asks insurance lawyer James Donovan (Hanks) to defend Abel before he is quietly imprisoned. But the more Donovan works with Abel, the more he sees that he’s not only faithful to his home country, but also surprisingly cooperative with the authorities.

At the same time Donovan begins to help Abel in finding a way to shorten his sentence, U.S. pilot Francis Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down while flying a U-2 spy plane over Russia, becoming imprisoned by the Soviets. And shortly after that, American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) in East Berlin is thrown in jail for trying to sneak his German girlfriend (Nadja Bobyleva) into West Berlin.

Alan Alda appears as Donovan’s boss, Jesse Plemons is Powers’ fellow pilot, Amy Ryan plays Mrs. Donovan and Eve Hewson plays their oldest daughter. Famous brothers Joel & Ethan Coen co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Charman. “Bridge of Spies” is Spielberg’s and Hanks’ fourth film together and second war theme after “Saving Pvt. Ryan” (1998). There isn’t really much left to say about Hanks as a lead actor, as he is clearly still confident and comfortable with being the main star of Hollywood pictures. The supporting cast members are great and look period appropriate in mid-20th century New York and Europe, but Rylance is the real scene stealer. After spending decades low key as a character actor, we can easily believe him to be a foreigner far from his homeland.

But the main standout in “Spies” is Spielberg’s direction. Four decades into his already well established career he doesn’t miss a beat, and still manages to be fresh. Even with the Coen Bros. name on the script, the film is still clearly a Spielberg picture, most evident by the U-2 sequence and Pryor walking around the Berlin Wall as it is being built. While the three story arcs could have easily become too tangled up, the movie flows naturally and creatively. To those who thought the trailers for Bridge of Spies looked like a basic courtroom drama, there’s much more going on for history buffs and for fans of just good filmmaking.

Megan Bianco is a Southern California-based movie reviewer and content writer with a degree from California State University Northridge.