After a three-year hiatus, Steven Spielberg is returning to the silver screen to direct the Cold War-themed Bridge of Spies, renewing his celebrated Oscar-winning partnership with actor Tom Hanks.
The trailer for the espionage thriller has now been released online by DreamWorks and gives a peek into what Bridge of Spies has in store.
Starring Hanks in the lead role of the screenplay written by the Coen brothers, the trailer for Bridge of Spies – which is based on the true life story of a Brookly lawyer – looks promising.
Hanks will be playing insurance lawyer James Donovan, whom the CIA recruits to help fight a case for the release of Rudolf Abel (played by Mark Rylance), a Soviet spy who has been captured by the U.S. government. He is tasked with negotiating a deal: exchanging Abel for a captured U.S. spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers. In 1960, Powers was captured when the U-2 spy plane he was piloting was shot down over Soviet air space.
The extraordinary circumstances transpire at the height of the Cold War as 58-year-old Donovan has to travel to Berlin to bring about the exchange, which is to take place on the Glienicke Bridge — the connector between East and West Berlin, also dubbed "the bridge of spies."
The trailer opens with an ominous sounding voiceover which lays the foundation of the film:
"We are engaged in a war with the Soviet Union. This war for the moment does not involve men at arms; it involves information."
The Bridge of Spies possesses the muted hues that hint at noir. It also stars Amy Ryan as Donovan's wife Mary. Thomas Watters, Donovan's partner at the law firm is played by Alan Alda. The trailer closes with Hanks' character echoing the American philosophy that every person should have a fair trial.
"Everyone deserves a defense. Every person matters," Donovan says.
Bridge of Spies is slated to open on October 16. Whether it will replicate the success story of the Spielberg-Hanks partnership remains to be seen.
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