The film has an old-world charm that is cozily ensconced in vividly enumerated, shadily expressive visual dynamics that scores high with it’s carefully calibrated tension and crafty cinematic constructs. Donovan is an intelligent hero who does not need the appendage of super-heroic powers. And Tom Hanks just makes it stick!

It was during the apex years of the Cold War, and anyone who elicited even the slightest bit of suspicion, was castigated by American society as well as hounded by the authorities. Donovan was assigned to the task of brokering Powers’ release. But just when it seems like it is a straightforward (in as much as such an operation can actually be straightforward) mission in delicate diplomacy, it turns out that another American, has been captured not by the Russians, but by the East Germans. It is now up to Donovan to not only secure the exchange release of Powers in exchange for Abel, but also free another American who has been detained by the East Germans. A gripping thriller, this one is bold, audacious and shocking.

“It is not a ghost story. It is a story with a ghost in it,” this oft-repeated line in the film is a reminder that director Guillermo Del Toro’s “Crimson Peak” is difficult to slot into any defined category or genre. The film is a psychosexually violent romance with ghosts dramatically emerging from the floors, doors and eerie hallways.Never entirely satisfying as a horror drama or a romance spectale, the film is visually dazzling. But overall, the film does not tug at you emotionally.