Movie Review: "Breach"

Three steps down from a great movie.

Starring Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper, Laura Linney, and Kathleen Quinlan, and directed by Billy Ray, this is the story of Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe), an FBI agent-in-training sent to work under Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper). The story dictated to him is that Hanssen has been sending lewd, sexual posts from his computer and that O’Neill’s job was to document each day and return his findings to Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney). Hanssen is standoff-ish, taking a while to trust O’Neill. O’Neill finds that Hanssen goes to church more than him, and seems a very respectable guy. Upon questioning Burroughs about why he’s been assigned to this detail, Burroughs lets him in on the fact that Hanssen has been sending counter-intelligence to the Russians, thus compromising missions and identities of American operatives. What follows is O’Neill trying to get close enough to Hanssen to expose him.

Chris Cooper has one of the best parts that he has ever had. Sure, he’s been typecast as a CIA/FBI/ex-military guy (see also, “Bourne” movies, “Jarhead,” “American Beauty”) but in this movie, the main character has a sense of conviction; that he knows what he’s doing is wrong but he’s so disgusted by the system that he’s gonna hand it back tenfold. This is all covered under a veneer of religion and being a family man. The truth rears its head when we find he sends pornographic videos of him and his wife to various others.

The difficulty in rating this film is that it’s better than mediocre, but not as good as it could have been. My major downfall with it is Ryan Phillippe. As an actor, I usually let him slide in whatever he does. Problem is that in this film, I found myself constantly asking, “Would I trust O’Neill (Phillippe) enough to let him get to know me within two months?” No. Hanssen has a look of question whenever O’Neill does something because Phillippe plays him like a kid who got his hand caught in the cookie jar.

Another issue with this film is that it plays like a denouement. There is no real drive or impetus behind anything; it all just seems to be a downhill ride. Whereas other films in the expatriate-spy genre seem to have a buildup to events (“The Falcon and the Snowman”) what we are given is a downhill slide. No car crashes, explosions, gadgets, girls, or executions delivered with lead-pipe cruelty (per se, “The Good Shepherd”). Tension is only given when Hanssen brandishes a gun on O’Neill, asking if he can trust him. If that’s not enough, toward most of the end the music becomes a single piano key hit over and over, either complimenting or reasserting the direction of the film.

For all of its faults, “Breach” was a good piece of filmmaking. Not great, but good. Kathleen Quinlan does well as Cooper’s wife. The entirety of it is enjoyable without being sleep-inducing. Although this is a movie that sounds better as a documentary, it’s still worth viewing during matinee, or at the very least on DVD in which I hope they load it with extras about the real case.

-Chas