Breach [DVD]

This is an excellent brooding, thriller,set in the world of the FBI, with the hunt after a mole,possibly the source of the greatest security breach in American history. Breach is based on this true story. We get a bit of newsreel at the start to show the capture and sentencing of Robert Hansen, who had been supplying the Russians with intelligence for 20 years. Chris Cooper captures the brooding intensity of this angry, embittered man, outwardly a Catholic family man with children, who believes he’s been overlooked and underappreciated in his long career of 22 years. Coming up to retirement, the agency has promoted him into a department, away from the chief intelligence sources, in a new division charged with evaluating security procedures around classified FBI intelligence. Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillipe) has been assigned to work with him in an adjoining office due to his computer savvy skills and because he’s a lapsed Catholic. Eric is looking to become an agent and is part of the ploy to draw the subject out of deep cover. They have a fair suspicion Hansen is the mole but as yet no hard evidence. The Russians have intimated there is a mole, but due to his use of aliases, they have no name. He’s never met the Russians; he just drops off top secret files in an opening under a bridge in a park, leaving white tape as a marker on a nearby lamp post to say he’s done the drop.Hansen continually tests the young man, getting Eric to tell him about himself. O’Neill has been told Hansen is a sexual deviant and posts stuff on line; that he needs to be monitored. Laura Linney is Eric’s handler. Hansen is moved by Eric’s lapsed Catholicism, and feels he can make headway with renewing the young man’s faith. Hansen becomes like a father-mentor to him and he introduces him to his wife and he gets to know Eric’s wife. He asks them to join him and his wife in church and share meals together at home. Eric is asked to help get Hansen out of his office so he can download files from his Palmer. He is also asked to drive him to an important interview so the Feds can strip his car down and make a search. Ryan and his wife have arguments a lot due to this added pressure from Hansen and his wife. His wife is not Catholic and he is not at liberty to keep her briefed on his operation, he’s also often out late on the work he has to do with Hansen. He feels a kind of loyalty to the man, having residual feelings of guilt and betrayal, often asking Linney why he’s doing this, he can’t see Hansen with this bifocal vision. So as well as layers of respect and fondness, there are levels of fear and paranoia. He is led to question his role and vocation. The film concentrates on character rather than action, the interiors are dark. The two main actors are superb in their roles and act off each other. The film was meticulously shot in the areas where it occurred, using the real life O’Neill as a source. Hansen is complex, enigmatic, not driven by money but the thrill of the chase.

Although this fictional re-enactment of the ensnarement of Soviet and Russian spy Robert Hanssen recounts events which took place in 2001 the film palpably resonates with chilling contemporary relevance. There are echoes of John Le Carre and Grahame Green in this fascinating tale of a high ranking FBI agent betraying his country for over twenty years before finally being caught, and although the movie begins with a television clip concerning the real Hanssen’s arrest (so we know how it all ends) it is nevertheless a fascinating dramatisation of the investigation which brought him to justice and an intelligent exploration of Hanssen’s possible motives for committing treason. Chris Cooper gives a marvellously understated and truly mesmerising performance as the Russian mole who sold secrets to the Soviets for $1.4million in cash and diamonds, his craggy features and grumpy demeanour hiding a complex and unscrupulously enigmatic character, deeply religious (so it appears) but willing to sell his soul to the KGB for financial gain. Cooper superbly portrays the inner turmoil of a pathetic melancholic man, fully cognisant of his hypocrisy and sensitive to the constant possibility of being found out. The interactions between himself and his younger assistant (tasked to find evidence of the treason) are presented as tense, cat-and-mouse affairs full of paranoia and suspicion, where one unguarded phrase could be a lethal tell. Despite lacking action sequences the narrative is intense and absorbing as the chess pieces are gradually assembled and positioned for the final dénouement. Sound support is provided by Ryan Phillippe as the young FBI agent while Laura Linney’s performance as his hard-nosed handler is convincing. For me this was a film to admire rather than to fully engage with but I would certainly recommend at least one viewing of this cautionary tale.

OK - so let's look at why this film shouldn't be as superb as it is ...(1) The first few minutes tell you how it's all going to end, so you know what's going to happen even before the main film starts.(2) There is virtually no action whatsoever in the sense of chases, fights etc. There's a mildly tense scene near the end in a wood at night when a gun is fired, but apart from that - nothing.(3) The film is mostly dialogue between the two main characters played by Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe, with some other important dialogue such as that between Ryan Phillippe and Laura Linney or Ryan Phillipe and Caroline Dhavernas.So the film should be dull or even boring - but it isn't. Absolutely not. It grabs you from the start and draws you in deeper and deeper as tension builds and you come to care about every single character - even the villain of the piece who is played with intensity and depth by Chris Cooper. The final visual of the film, as lift doors close, is one that you won't forget in a hurry.I also recommend watching two particular special features on the DVD which explore both the film-making process and the anatomy of a character. They really do show you how exact the film-makers were when it came to getting everything just right: All the people who, in real life, were involved in tracking down the traitor, were not only interviewed but also shown taking part behind the cameras during the filming. Things were done so carefully that the actress playing one character actually wore a copy of the wedding ring worn by the person who had been involved for real in the events being portrayed.And yet this is not a mere 'True Crime' retelling of events - it is a dramatic film based on a wonderful script with an ensemble of superb actors and actresses. I'd class it as being genuinely 'unmissable'.