Four stars. Rated PG-13, for war violence, dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.16.15
Atticus Finch lives.
Harper Lee is known to have based
the iconic hero of To Kill a Mockingbird on her own father, Alabama lawyer
Amasa Coleman Lee, who — like the book’s character — represented unpopular
defendants in a highly publicized (and politicized) trial.
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| As the trial that might send Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance, left) to the gas chamber proceeds, defense attorney James Donovan (Tom Hanks) is surprised to see his client remain so calm. "Aren't you worried?" Donovan asks. Abel's response becomes the film's best signature line. |
How ironic, then, that at the
same time Harper Lee was fine-tuning the novel that would make her famous,
newspaper headlines across the United States pilloried the country’s most-hated
lawyer, James Donovan, who had bravely accepted the assignment to defend
captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
I can’t help wondering if any of
Donovan’s characteristics wandered into Lee’s depiction of Atticus.
Donovan’s name and historical
significance have remained buried for decades, although Abel might ring a few
bells. Sirens are likely to go off, however, when both men are linked to
American pilot Francis Gary Powers, who was captured after his U-2 spy plane
was blasted out of the sky during a photographic reconnaissance mission over
the Soviet Union.
The interlinked saga involving
Donovan, Abel and Powers has been resurrected and transformed into a thoughtful,
fascinating and thoroughly absorbing period drama by director Steven Spielberg
and scripters Matt Charman, Joel and Ethan Coen. It’s Cold War-era spyjinks
right out of John Le Carre, except that these events actually took place: yet
another reminder that truth can be far stranger than fiction.
(The film credits make no mention
of Donovan’s well-received 1964 memoir, Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of
Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers, which I find odd; it’s impossible to
imagine that Charman and the Coen brothers didn’t read that book.)
Spielberg’s film is anchored by a
commanding performance from Tom Hanks, who channels every dedicated and deeply
honorable character ever played by Henry Fonda and James Stewart. At the same
time, Hanks brings his own wry, subtle humor to this depiction of Donovan: a
capable and hard-working family man caught up in events far beyond his
imagining.
(Or so we’re led to believe.
Given Donovan’s WWII service as General Counsel at the Office of Strategic
Services, he may not have been as “ordinary” as this film suggests. But this
portrayal makes for a better story.)
