Breach
Rated: PG-13 
God bless Billy Ray. Bless him for making films like Shattered Glass and now Breach. Bless him because adults need intelligent thrillers and Ashley Judd as Woman in Trouble ain’t cuttin’ it. While his latest directorial effort isn’t as good as Glass, he competently provides the platform for a maginficent leading performance from veteran actor Chris Cooper. Based on a true story, Breach tells about the final months before the capture of FBI Agent Robert Hanssen, a traitor who leaked information to the Russians for twenty-two years, and how Eric O’Neill, a young investigative specialist, managed to help the FBI catch Hanssen. In between, we see a rich portrayal of Hanssen as an enigmatic figure worthy of discussion and a boring personal story of O’Neill as a tool who argues with his wife because he has to keep secrets from her. If this film came out at the end of the year rather than the beginning, Cooper would be a shoe-in for a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Cooper provides so much depth and nuance to Hanssen that even if he weren’t a real man, the realism and strength of Cooper’s performance would have you believe he was as real as the guy breathing loudly behind you in the theatre and totally ruining the movie. Cooper received a lot of acclaim (and an Oscar) for his portrayal of orchid thief John Laroche in Adaptation. but I believe this is his best performance to date. Hanssen is sinister, arrogant, pathetic, hypocritical, and a whole range of deep emotions and each one will have you absolutely enraptured. Unfortunately, Phillippe’s O’Neill counter-balances Cooper’s performance and ends up crippling the film. Rather than paint O’Neill as a man who is constantly conflicted by Hanssen’s actions, Ray went for the real rather than the compelling and as such, O’Neill just seems like a tool. He does what his FBI superiors tell him, he spies on Hanssen with reasonable finesse, and basically wrestles with having to keep the operation secret from his wife while the audience wrestles with her accent (it’s some bizarre combination of British/German/French/American/possibly-Venusian). As the film progresses, more weight and time shifts to O’Neill and neither the script or Phillippe’s screen-presence (or lack thereof) is adequate for the task. The film has a lot of maturity and I respect its quest for realism but a miscast Phillippe and the character’s lack of an interesting character arc leave Cooper carrying the film. Thankfully, he not only carries the film, but provides the reason you should go out and see it. Words by |