Bridge of Spies

[peter]

At last got to see this and it is, as per the reviews, a fine film. Hanks in fine form as the insurance lawyer drawn into cold-war spy shenanigans and abley backed by a cast of lesser known actors who, while slightly charicatureish(?) at times, still keep the film zipping along at a good pace. A bit heavy handed at times perhaps - but this is Spielberg after all!
[edited to Flesh out the above]
I had a go at reading the book prior to seeing the film and it was one of the [for me] rare cases where the lattger outperformed the former as entertainment. The book got bogged down in the back-stories of the principal charachters prior to the action proper and suffered in comparison thereby. The film made much of the difference between the East and West - the one being all grim bleakness and the other 'post-war brylcream', and one particularly entertaining scene is used to illustrate just how far the Soviets would pursue ridiculous charades to their bitter ends, whatever the cost. Nothing could ever be simple in that tangled cat and mouse world and the film portrays this to great effect. How true to the actual events does the film stay - I'll never know because I never finished the book, but either way it makes a great story and in the hands of Spielberg a damn fine bit of cinema.

[SleeplessOne]

I really enjoyed this film also; apparently the Coens assisted with the script and I certainly detected a little of their absurdist humor coming through in the dialogue.
Great story, one which I had no prior knowledge of - was pleased to discover upon further research that the true events upon which the film was based were not too far removed from what went up on the screen ..