Do you like corruption, double agents who sell precious classified information to the Commies and fanatical religious freaks (well, from a safe distance)? If so, Breach is the movie for you.
Breach tells the riveting true story of Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who was caught and convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. Hanssen sold U.S. secrets for millions in cash and diamonds over a 15-year period. His secret-selling has since been dubbed as the most costly security failure in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Billy Ray directs Breach, continuing his obsession with directing movies that tell the tales of people not exactly doing their jobs correctly. A prior project he directed was the critically acclaimed Shattered Glass, which offered the story of Stephen Glass, a journalist who fabricated more than half his articles while working at the prestigious The New Republic magazine.
With Breach, Ray does a beautiful cinematographic job, and as an added bonus, the movie takes place and was shot in Washington. Keep an eye out for the many Metro stops visited by the characters or a glimpse of Foxstone Park in Vienna, Va., where Hanssen will finally encounter his downfall.
Because the movie opens with former Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing Hanssen’s arrest, any sort of mystery surrounding the outcome is lost. But the outcome isn’t really the important part of this story – instead, the fun comes with how Eric O’Neill manipulates the man who has been outsmarting the entire FBI for more than 15 years. After the announcement, the movie jumps back two months to December 2000, when O’Neill was placed on the case.
Breach focuses on low-level FBI employee O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe, Crash), who is hired to shadow Hanssen (Chris Cooper, Seabiscuit), who is suspected of being a sexual deviant. After getting to know Hanssen, O’Neill discovers a very devout Opus Dei follower with a loving wife and grandchildren who adore him. Soon, O’Neill grows to trust Hanssen and believes the FBI is researching him for no reason.
But after a heated discussion with his boss, Special Agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney, Kinsey), O’Neill discovers that Hanssen has been responsible for the deaths of several Americans and billions of dollars in economic damage. The stakes get even higher when O’Neill learns that he has only two months to catch Hanssen in the act before he retires – and walks away a free man.
Inevitably, the movie takes a creepy turn as soon as O’Neill starts working with Hanssen. Hanssen visits O’Neill’s Protestant wife, Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas, Hollywoodland), at their home in an attempt to convert her; it’s at this point the movie becomes vaguely like a horror movie. Cooper, who won an Oscar for Adaptation, plays Hanssen like a serial murderer from a slasher flick – half the time, the viewing audience might expect him to pull out a machete and murder half the characters.
But while Hanssen was clearly a secretive, not-so-nice person in real life, something just does not feel right about his character in the movie; only when the audience accepts the fact he’s not the second coming of Hannibal Lecter can they truly sit back and enjoy the ride.
After the first few minutes of Breach – which are deceptively boring – the film’s action really gets started, and what follows is a breezy ride through recent American history. The movie never lets up and leaves the viewer on the edge of his seat the whole way through – it never feels too long or too forced, and the attention to detail is amazing. Ray spent hours interviewing the real-life O’Neill, learning exactly which briefcase and model of Palm Pilot the real-life Hanssen used. The arrest of Hanssen is filmed at the exact location where he was actually arrested, with the exact same cars and number of agents arresting him. It all makes for a sort of Cops: Special Traitors Edition feel.
And yet with all the attention to detail, the story is still spiced up for Hollywood. The role of O’Neill is slightly overstated in the movie, making him out to be the sole reason Hanssen was caught while in actuality, the FBI had more than 500 agents working on the case.
But thankfully, overlooking the inaccuracies of Breach is easy with the great acting present. Phillippe does a fantastic job portraying O’Neill, who comes off exactly like a young, hotshot FBI agent looking to advance his career. Cooper, while overly creepy, still plays his role as an agent-gone-bad with conviction – even if he does look exactly like an older version of Al Gore.
Between the amazing attention to detail, the beautiful scenery of our nation’s capital and the riveting story line, Breach is one of the best movies so far this year. Ray does an excellent job of pulling the viewer into the story for an all-too-short 110 minutes.
Contact reporter Jason
Koebler at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.
