Breach (12A) *** (From Daily Echo)
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Breach (12A) ***
10:06am Friday 31st August 2007 in News By Damon Smith
ON February 18, 2001, Special Agent Robert Hanssen was arrested by fellow FBI operatives, accused of treason against the country he vowed to protect.
Hanssen was charged with selling classified, top secret documents to the former Soviet Union, jeopardising well-placed double agents in the KGB hierarchy, who were spying on behalf of America.
Writer-director Billy Ray's serpentine thriller recreates the massive surveillance operation to bring down devoutly religious family man Hanssen (Chris Cooper) and to expose him as a traitor.
Special Agents Dean Plesac (Dennis Haysbert) and Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) lead the internal probe and they approach 26-year-old agent-in-training Eric O'Neill (Phillippe) to spy on Hanssen and gather evidence of any wrongdoing.
Eric is resourceful and intelligent, and ferociously ambitious, determined to escape his low-level surveillance detail and secure full agent status as soon as possible.
The newcomer is excited by his top secret posting and Kate reminds him of the sensitivity of the case: "No one knows about this, not even your wife."
As he gets close to Hanssen, befriending the older man's wife Bonnie (Kathleen Quinlan) and family and winning their trust, Eric begins to understand the veteran agent's old-fashioned outlook on life and his faith in God.
Running to a little under two hours, Breach sustains the escalating tension well, building to a nail-biting finale.
Ray directs with cool detachment, including a couple of suspenseful set pieces, both involving Eric snooping in Hanssen's personal files, seconds away from being exposed as a snitch.
Cooper is mesmerising as the old-timer stuck in his ways, confiding to Eric that, "I disapprove of women wearing pant suits. Men wear pants. The world doesn't need any more Hilary Clintons."
Phillippe pales in comparison and Linney has been better too, relegated here to a perfunctory supporting role.
- See it at the Odeon and Empire.
