journal features

movie review - Bridge of Spies

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2017.08.04

This is a Cold War piece about a lawyer who is hired by the US military to negotiate the freedom of a spy who has been captured by the Soviets. Unknown to the military, the lawyer isn't just a fine negotiator, he's also unwilling to "leave a man behind" and when he discovers that an innocent US citizen has also been caught up in the fun of the Soviet's endless prison complex, he insists on freeing that person as well.

It's a tense tale of course (have I mentioned the Soviets) and I found it engaging from start to finish. It hits just the right tone, that there can be hope and that that hope can come from doing the right thing in the face of long odds and no reward from your 'friends'. I mean, I've spent most of my career in that headspace. The lead knocks it out of the park with his portrayal of a quietly confident person able to stare down his blustering countrymen and the stone-faced opposition.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force