Entertainment
‘Bridge of Spies’: A classic Spielberg film (Movie Review ****)
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Bridge of Spies”; Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Noah Schnapp, John Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda, Austin Stowell, Mikhail Gorevoy, Will Rogers; Director: Steven Spielberg; Rating: ****
A tale spanning over a period of five years, from 1957 to 1962, “Bridge of Spies” is inspired by true events that occurred during the height of the cold war between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the US.
The film revolves around Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks), a persevering American lawyer who facilitated a smooth exchange of prisoners from the two blocks during this tense period.
The narration begins in a very artistic manner with an artist looking at the mirror while painting his portrait, thus giving us three visages of the same man in one frame. This is in Brooklyn, US. This quiet artist we later learn, on his arrest by agents from the FBI on charges of espionage, is retired Russian Colonel Rudolf Abel.
The CIA appoints a principled New York insurance attorney James Donovan to defend “the traitor and a high-level Soviet Spy”, in the court of law.
While Abel is proved guilty in the court of law, Donovan being a thorough professional with abiding loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, cares and worries about his client’s well being. He shrewdly saves the man from the electric chair.
Donovan’s life gets complicated when he is asked to head to Berlin and facilitate the trade of Abel for Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), the U-2 pilot being held by the Soviets as a spy after being shot down over Russian airspace.
Once in Berlin, Donovan learns about the confinement of an American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), who had unfortunately, landed up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall.
How he astutely negotiates the swap of both US citizens for the Russian, forms the crux of the tale.
The script written by Matt Charman and the Cohen brothers – Joel and Ethan – is ingeniously crafted as an intellectual thriller. The plot is gripping and the screenplay is near perfect. Tension is palpable in every scene, but the characters are almost never in real danger.
Every character is well etched and every actor has taken great pains to portray their roles naturally and effectively.
Hanks, who teams up with Spielberg for the fourth time, brings his adept everyman quality to the role of Donovan, sniffling his way through snow-blown Berlin trying to secure “a happy ending for everyone.”
He is aptly supported by a constellation of terrific character actors. Alan Alda plays his business partner Thomas Watters, Amy Ryan portrays his wife Mary, Sebastian Koch is Wolfgang Vogel, the shrouded-in-mystery German mediator “although none of them have much to sink their teeth into”.
But it is Mark Rylance who steals the show with his icy intensity as the plain faced and nondescript Rudolf Abel. He plays the good soldier who won’t give the CIA anything about his covert work, with aplomb. His typical response, “Would it help?” elicits a chuckle or two every time he utters these words.
Spielberg has once again collaborated with his long time cinematographer, the two-time Oscar winner Janusz Kaminski, to give picture perfect images of the period. Kaminski captures the mood, locales and moments of history especially of East Germany and the iconic Glienicke Bridge with stark tones and atmospheric lighting.
The film has the classic Spielberg stamp imprinted all over.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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