Breach (2007) * * *

 

Directed by:  Billy Ray

Starring:  Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper, Laura Linney, Kathleen Quinlan, Caroline Dhavernas, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Cole, Bruce Davison

Breach tells the story of how traitorous FBI agent Robert Hanssen was finally captured by his own agency in the early days of the George W. Bush administration.   What makes Breach all the more involving isn't the covert cat-and-mouse game between Hanssen (Cooper) and his clerk Eric O' Neill (Phillippe), a wannabe FBI agent installed to do intel on Hanssen, but how Hanssen is presented as an enigma even to himself.   A deeply religious man; Hanssen was convicted of selling intelligence secrets to the Russians for sixteen years while working for the FBI.   There are moments he clearly had remorse about his duplicity.   He went to church every day, loved his wife and grandchildren, yet sneakily recorded video of he and his wife having sex and shipped the tapes off to friends.   Cooper plays Hanssen as a man full of dichotomies whose inner turmoil is hidden by a stern, grizzled face.   It's quite a performance and it is the glue to holding Breach together.  

We first meet not Hanssen but Eric as he works his way up the ladder to FBI agent.   He is assigned to perform as Hanssen's clerk by Agent Kate Burroughs (Linney), who tells Eric they are keeping tabs on him because he's a "sexual deviant" and they are building a case against him.   Hanssen, an FBI lifer months away from mandatory retirement age, was assigned an "assistant to the assistant director" type of job in a tiny office with no windows.   Hanssen is insulted and he has no qualms about letting his superiors know about it.   Eric quickly intuits the case against Hanssen isn't about his sex life, but about something deeper.   Burroughs then lets Eric in on the real deal:  Hanssen is suspected to be a traitor, but no case could ever be made against him.   

Hanssen is at first gruff and no-nonsense with Eric, but gradually softens towards him because both share similar religious backgrounds.   Hanssen goes to church daily, while Eric only goes occasionally.  Eric is married to Juliana (Dhavernas), who grew up in East Germany and begins to resent Eric's secrecy and long hours away from home.   Breach's biggest weakness is those tired scenes stressing Eric's deteriorating marriage and home life.   We've seen those all before.   

Phillippe is a capable actor in an underwritten role.   Most of the juicy parts go to Cooper, who plays the more fascinating person anyway.   As the movie moves along, we sense Hanssen is dog tired of this game he plays.   Capture may be a welcome relief for him because he can then stop living a double life which has weighed on him for years.   We sense years of being an underappreciated asset to the FBI drove him to his crimes.   Cooper has a countenance that suggests multitudes of possibilities.   He's tough to read and way too smart to be played by a novice like Eric.   Perhaps he lets his guard down because he's sick of having to keep it up. 

Breach moves along briskly, only slowing whenever Juliana and Eric have a perfunctory fight (which is once or twice too often for my taste), but the suspense elements still play well.   We see a Robert Hanssen whose next moves are a mystery to himself and especially to others.   It's as if we hardly knew the man.