This is one of the better spy movies about the Cold War that have come out in the last 20 years and considering the importance of the Cold War, there should have been more movies like this made about what went on during this very difficult time in our Nations history.

The main character in this movie, played by Tom Hanks is James B. Donovan and he is an important American who should be more famous considering the important things he did for this country. After the trial of a Russian spy (Rudolf Abel), who was defended by Donovan, he was commissioned by the CIA to negotiate the prisoner swap Francis Gary Powers, who was a pilot who was shot down at 70,000 feet in a spy plane and the Russian spy. Where this true story got very complicated was when the United States wanted two prisoners in return for the Russian spy; Gary Powers and an Economics student who was arrested in East Germany, Fredrick Pryor. The politics of the negotiations between the Russians, East Germans and the United States all being handled by Donovan was for the most part interesting, but there were times when the movie stalled and was rather boring.

This movie hit the mark for the most part and was a good story to know about during the Cold War. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg both did a solid job as the lead actor and director in this movie, but I don’t see this movie necessarily being up for best picture or best director, perhaps because the subject matter is not strong enough. At the end of this movie it was mentioned that James B. Donovan was also hired by President Kennedy to negotiate the return of American prisoners after the Bay of Pigs and was able to negotiate the release of 9 times more people than he was originally commissioned to return, which is another great accomplishment that more Americans should be aware of. Movies about true history events and great Americans like Donovan is another reason why we go to the movies, to learn about world history that most of us are not aware even happened.

I definitely recommend this movie.

Bridge of Spies IMDB

Man’s inhumanity to man. The year 2008 and the following nightmare of the housing crisis which almost brought down the economy of the entire world is yet another example of “mans inhumanity to man”. Mega rich billionaires were given the ability to do whatever they wanted in an attempt to revive an economy that was in bad shape since the internet bubble and bear market of March 2000 to October 2002. Home loans for any dollar amount were given to everyone regardless of their income or even if they had no job. As a result because of the leverage caused by all this; the insane loans that were given to so many Americans who soon defaulted resulted in the worst housing bubble in US history and created a disaster that has almost quadrupled the National Debt of the United States.

The movie 99 Homes is about what happens to people when they can’t get a job for a long period of time or when they can no longer afford their adjustable rate mortgages. What happens is they are cruelly evicted from their houses, regardless of whether they have children or are very old or are waiting for a legal proceeding that might save them. Unscrupulous criminals are then able to take advantage of this situation to the determent of so many people who are forced out of their houses. During the housing bubble and subsequent economic disaster that started in 2007; appliances were stolen and houses were trashed as the people abandoned their houses. What this movie showed is that some criminals were removing these appliances illegally and then charging Fannie May for the replacement of these appliances and pocketing the profits. This movie is about criminals who will do anything to get rich and could care less if they ruin many lives to get there. This movie is also about a young man who gets caught up in this criminal activity after his own family home was foreclosed on and in the end he develops a conscience.

This movie was very well done and very well acted and is highly recommended. The actors Andrew Garfield and Micheal Shannon did a very good job in this movie. Micheal Shannon might be a candidate for best actor.

IMDB 99 Homes

According to a display at the beginning of this movie: “Sicario in Mexican means Hit Man”. This movie points out some horrible life realities about Mexico and the poor that we all already know about. When you are so poor that your future life will mean living on the streets then the only way to survive is to either illegally break into the United States or lead a life of crime which mostly includes drug trafficking.

Recent news events and comments about illegal immigration in this country from the likes of Donald Trump is at the center of this movie which is about major drug king pins from Columbia and Mexico and tunnels that lead from Mexico into Arizona and Texas. This movie is also about revenge and a strategy by the CIA and FBI to flush out the worst and highest ranking drug criminals to get them to reveal not only themselves by their higher contacts in Mexico and Columbia in an attempt to reduce drug trafficking from the top down.

This movie was well made for the most part but during other scenes it was kind of slow, not really moving forward for some time. There was a long scene in the beginning of this movie which involved a long convoy of SUV’s driving through many miles of Mexican roads through crime country, that eventually lead to a major shootout on a highway which was highly unusual in how it eventually came about. The acting was very solid throughout and the ending scenes which involve revenge of of a Colombian drug agent working with the CIA was very well done but at the same time very disturbing. Emily Blunt did a fine job as the lead in this movie but just like her character she seemed at times over her head with some of the extreme violence in some of the scenes.

I do recommend this movie.

IMDB Sicaro Movie