Screen Scene: “Breach”

“Breach”

Director Billy Ray

universal pictures

A hard-hitting government spy thriller that twists and turns so much that we need a military-regulated GPS system to discover where the story will end.

At least, that is what would be expected of a film about the lure and capture of a treacherous FBI agent and his 15-year career of selling secrets to the Soviet Union, fooling everyone in his wake.

But director Billy Ray betrays the potential of “Breach,” based on the true story of double-agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) and his arrest facilitated by the undercover work of agent Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe), playing the story too close to the truth.

The film conveniently begins after all the exciting spy work has been executed, with Hanssen in the middle of a federal investigation ““ unknown to him, of course. This choice to focus on Hanssen’s rather mundane demise as opposed to his lucrative dealings with the Communists turns the film into a conversation-driven bore fest rather than the action-packed, pseudo-intellectual thriller it could have been.

Not to say that “Breach” is not pierced every so often with flashbacks and quick scenes of the agent’s traitorous acts.

Sure, we see the electrifying letters he writes to his Soviet correspondents and watch with suspense as he hides the blood money under his floorboard.

But the film never invites the audience to a cheap thrill, perhaps a heart-thumping run to escape the Russians or a breath-holding, complication-threatening exposure.

If not for Cooper’s powerful portrayal, Hanssen might derive more punishment from watching this film than from his life sentence in his maximum security prison for all the crimes he committed.

The performances rescue the film from pointlessness. Cooper carefully adopts Hanssen’s quirks while Phillippe, sans his regular blond hair, still stands out as the young, vibrant actor who brings to the screen a sense of both strength and vulnerability.

Laura Linney gives an equally praiseworthy performance, but the sexual tension between Linney and Phillippe drowns out the content of certain scenes.

Whether this is intentional or just a product of Phillippe’s sweltering beauty cannot be discerned.

Regardless, their stellar performances cannot redress the script’s lack of development and creativity. Even if the director was trying to stay true to the story, he could have at least chosen the time frames which included action-packed events. We can only stare at Phillippe sitting at a desk, deep in thought, for so long.

Actually, good move, Billy Ray.

E-mail Leano at kleano@media.ucla.edu.

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