About the title
1957, Brooklyn. Renowned lawyer James Donovan takes on an unusual case: his client, Rudolf Abel, is suspected of spying for the Soviet Union. Unlike his colleagues, Donovan defends the "doomed" defendant not merely as a formality but according to the full principles of justice — as if Rudolf were a loyal American citizen. Such an approach irritates everyone, including the judges and jury, but Donovan manages to soften the sentence: from the death penalty to 30 years in prison. It soon turns out that an American spy, Francis Powers, has been captured in the USSR. The Soviet authorities propose exchanging Abel for Powers, and Donovan finds himself at the center of this dangerous deal.