Based on a true story, 'Breach' just never really engages us
By MATT SOERGEL, The Times-UnionBreach is a spy movie that feels more rooted in reality than most, with only minimal gunfire and not a single gravity-defying stunt.
Though you might appreciate the effort Breach takes to avoid spy-movie cliches, it ultimately can't find enough juicy, human emotions to substitute for them. It's not as if there aren't some possibilities for that.
It's based on the true story of Robert Hanssen, an FBI expert on Russian affairs who in 2001 was arrested as a traitor who'd been working for the Soviets and Russians for years. He was finally exposed with the help of Eric O'Neill, a young FBI employee who posed as a clerk in Hanssen's office to gather proof - right under the imperious nose of his wary boss.
Director Billy Ray (Shattered Glass) sets his film in a gray world of poorly-lit offices and wintertime Washington, D.C. It's drab, deliberately so, perhaps too drab to fully involve us
Hanssen (reliable Chris Cooper) is portrayed as a conservative Roman Catholic (and member of Opus Dei) who listens to the Andrew Sisters, drives a Taurus and goes to church every day. "I disapprove of women in pantsuits," he says. He also likes strippers, Internet porn and secretly videotaping sex with his wife (Kathleen Quinlan) and passing the tapes on to a friend. He hides thick stacks of money from his Russian handlers inside his house, one on top of the other.
O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe), meanwhile, is ambitious but a bit unsure of himself: He hasn't made agent yet, and wonders if he will. And he finds himself beginning to admire Hanssen, almost in spite of himself.
That's a promising set-up, and Breach creates a few moments of bristly tension in some psychological standoffs between O'Neill and his treasonous boss.
The film never really takes off, though, largely because it seems to be taking place in a vacuum. A stiff Laura Linney, as a big-wig FBI agent, has the thankless job of telling us over and over how rotten Hanssen is. Yet Breach can never quite persuade us that he's as dangerous or pathetic or diabolical as it would like us to believe. The movie keeps his character at a distance from us, instead spending more time on the rather bland young guy on his trail.
Hanssen's dirty work remains a mystery, and so does most of his messy mental state. Why did he do what he did? We get a few clues, here and there, but Breach seems curiously reticent in exploring his twisted psyche. Hanssen surely was a fascinating creep; I'd like to know the why and how of that, in all its disturbing detail.
15 years ago
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