"Breach" tells the true story of Robert Hanssen, America's worst spy and traitor, through the eyes of Eric O'Neill, one of the many FBI personnel who was assigned to gathering evidence against Hanssen.
Chris Cooper, handsome and slim, looks nothing like the fat, oily, ugly Hanssen. But Cooper, like the rest of the cast, puts in an intense, believable performance.
Ryan Philippe, as Eric O'Neill, on whose accounts the film is based, is okay as a young newlywed trying -- trying too hard, in the eyes of his coworkers -- to become an FBI agent, and who is ambiguous about that ambition.
Philippe has the appropriate youth, callowness, and skill, but he never really communicates a sense of the precariousness of his position. I don't worry about him. He's too suave, too cocksure. His surety decreased my tension, and one must feel tension in a movie like this, even though if you've read the news, you know what happened to Hanssen.
I couldn't help but think what a Jack-Lemmon-like actor would have made of that role, someone who could, as Lemmon did, communicate that he was a white-collar, white-male who was struggling hard to do what was expected of him. Maybe the actor Topher Grace could have done something interesting with the O'Neill role.
Laura Linney, one of the finest actresses alive today, is just pitch perfect as an FBI agent for whom the FBI is her entire life. She admits that she does not even have a cat; she despairs that Hanssen has worked to undo every good thing she has worked to do. She is asked if her difficult career has been worth it; she says, "Ask me when we've caught Hanssen." The history here is fascinating. The film is well made. Here's the problem -- Eric O'Neill was a marginal character, and telling the Hanssen story through his point of view reduces the story's most compelling aspects.
Robert Hanssen is one of the most lurid personalities America has ever produced. He was a member of Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic cult notorious for its extreme practices, including self-flagellation. At the same time, Hanssen was engaging in the most extreme of behaviors: funding a stripper, posting porn on the internet featuring his wife, under her own, real name, surreptitiously filming his wife during sex, and selling every secret America has to her enemies.
Too, Hanssen's bio is full of lurid details. Hanssen's father abused him physically and psychologically. Hanssen reported that he felt both love and hatred for his father.
Hanssen's bio, in short, brings up many questions. What makes a man lead a double life? Is Opus Dei culpable in any way for enabling Hanssen? What makes a man betray his country? What is the final, exact toll of the damage Hanssen has done? Was Hanssen's treachery related to the attacks on 9-11? Finally, how could so many very intelligent people have been fooled by Hanssen for so long? "Breach" doesn't provide answers to these profound questions that you haven't heard from the average newspaper article about Hanssen. This is a theme of Shakespearean depth and profundity, and "Breach" offers nothing more than a sketchy, mouse's eye view.
Eric O'Neill is simply not as interesting or important to the audience as Robert Hanssen. The movie doesn't make him interesting or important. His squabbles with his wife over his FBI duties, for example, seem petty and contrived.
Perhaps a film could have been made that honored the complexities of the themes at play in the Hanssen case from the point of view of Eric O'Neill, but this isn't that film.
It is a very good film, though, intelligent, crisp, swiftly moving, and very well acted. It's just not a great film.
Chris Cooper, handsome and slim, looks nothing like the fat, oily, ugly Hanssen. But Cooper, like the rest of the cast, puts in an intense, believable performance.
Ryan Philippe, as Eric O'Neill, on whose accounts the film is based, is okay as a young newlywed trying -- trying too hard, in the eyes of his coworkers -- to become an FBI agent, and who is ambiguous about that ambition.
Philippe has the appropriate youth, callowness, and skill, but he never really communicates a sense of the precariousness of his position. I don't worry about him. He's too suave, too cocksure. His surety decreased my tension, and one must feel tension in a movie like this, even though if you've read the news, you know what happened to Hanssen.
I couldn't help but think what a Jack-Lemmon-like actor would have made of that role, someone who could, as Lemmon did, communicate that he was a white-collar, white-male who was struggling hard to do what was expected of him. Maybe the actor Topher Grace could have done something interesting with the O'Neill role.
Laura Linney, one of the finest actresses alive today, is just pitch perfect as an FBI agent for whom the FBI is her entire life. She admits that she does not even have a cat; she despairs that Hanssen has worked to undo every good thing she has worked to do. She is asked if her difficult career has been worth it; she says, "Ask me when we've caught Hanssen." The history here is fascinating. The film is well made. Here's the problem -- Eric O'Neill was a marginal character, and telling the Hanssen story through his point of view reduces the story's most compelling aspects.
Robert Hanssen is one of the most lurid personalities America has ever produced. He was a member of Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic cult notorious for its extreme practices, including self-flagellation. At the same time, Hanssen was engaging in the most extreme of behaviors: funding a stripper, posting porn on the internet featuring his wife, under her own, real name, surreptitiously filming his wife during sex, and selling every secret America has to her enemies.
Too, Hanssen's bio is full of lurid details. Hanssen's father abused him physically and psychologically. Hanssen reported that he felt both love and hatred for his father.
Hanssen's bio, in short, brings up many questions. What makes a man lead a double life? Is Opus Dei culpable in any way for enabling Hanssen? What makes a man betray his country? What is the final, exact toll of the damage Hanssen has done? Was Hanssen's treachery related to the attacks on 9-11? Finally, how could so many very intelligent people have been fooled by Hanssen for so long? "Breach" doesn't provide answers to these profound questions that you haven't heard from the average newspaper article about Hanssen. This is a theme of Shakespearean depth and profundity, and "Breach" offers nothing more than a sketchy, mouse's eye view.
Eric O'Neill is simply not as interesting or important to the audience as Robert Hanssen. The movie doesn't make him interesting or important. His squabbles with his wife over his FBI duties, for example, seem petty and contrived.
Perhaps a film could have been made that honored the complexities of the themes at play in the Hanssen case from the point of view of Eric O'Neill, but this isn't that film.
It is a very good film, though, intelligent, crisp, swiftly moving, and very well acted. It's just not a great film.