Steven Spielberg · 2015 · thriller
Steven Spielberg's 2015 Cold War film. An insurance lawyer is handed the job of defending a Soviet agent arrested in Brooklyn, and does it properly enough to be hated for it. When a U-2 pilot is shot down over the Urals, the same lawyer is sent unofficially into a divided Berlin to trade one man for two, with no standing and nobody willing to admit he is there.
- 1Brooklyn
The FBI arrest Rudolf Abel in his Brooklyn apartment, and the insurance lawyer James Donovan is asked to defend him so that the trial looks fair - a job everyone expects him to lose politely, and which he insists on doing properly.
- 2New York
Donovan takes the appeal to the Supreme Court, is vilified for it and has his house shot at - arguing that Abel is worth more alive than executed, because one day the Soviets may hold someone America wants back.
- 3Sverdlovsk
High over the Urals, a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft is hit by a missile and Francis Gary Powers takes to his parachute instead of the poison pin - and lands in Soviet custody, making Donovan's argument suddenly urgent.
- 4East Berlin
Sent to Berlin as a private citizen with no standing, Donovan crosses into the East as the Wall goes up - and insists on negotiating for two men, a student held by the GDR as well as Powers, which nobody has authorised.
- 5The Glienicke Bridge
The exchange happens at dawn on the Glienicke Bridge between Potsdam and West Berlin, with the student's release at Checkpoint Charlie still unconfirmed - and Donovan refusing to let Abel walk until word comes through.