Ultimately, the movie soars because of the inspired casting of Chris Cooper as Hanssen.
Breach (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:43
Fresh:32
Rotten:11
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: Powered by Chris Cooper's masterful performance, Breach is a tense and engaging portrayal of the FBI's infamous turncoat.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for violence, sexual content and language.
Runtime: 3 hrs 42 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Feb 16, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $32,958,840
Synopsis: Chris Cooper (ADAPTATION) gives a remarkable performance as complicated and bitter FBI agent Robert Hanssen in BREACH. Hanssen is a computer specialist who, after 25 years of service, is put under... Chris Cooper (ADAPTATION) gives a remarkable performance as complicated and bitter FBI agent Robert Hanssen in BREACH. Hanssen is a computer specialist who, after 25 years of service, is put under surveillance as a suspected sex offender. Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe, CRASH) is the ambitious young upstart they put on the job, assigning him to pose as Hanssen's new clerk in order to win his trust and keep an eye on his every move. Eric is dismayed to be put on such low-priority detail, accustomed as he is to investigating high-profile terrorism suspects. His reluctance is multiplied as he gets to know the subject of his inquiry; Hanssen is at first harsh towards his young secretary, but as he opens up, Eric gets to know and respect him as a family man of strong Catholic faith. Soon, however, Hanssen is infiltrating Eric's personal life and causing problems between him and his wife, Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas, HOLLYWOODLAND), and just when Eric is about to give up the case, he discovers that it is much bigger than he ever imagined. Eric finds himself in the middle of an investigation into the biggest security breach in U.S. history, forcing him to resort to dramatic and ingenious tactics in order to bring down the suspect. Director Billy Ray's first directorial effort was the dramatization of the Stephen Glass scandal at the D.C. magazine The New Republic in SHATTERED GLASS, and here he once again turns his eye--with great success--to a true story with a complex villain. Cooper's excellent characterization invites pity and horror in equal measure; his performance is well supported in this character-driven thriller by Laura Linney (KINSEY) as the hard-nosed agent leading the investigation, and Phillippe as the resourceful and introspective O'Neill. [More]
Starring: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Kathleen Quinlan, Laura Linney
Starring: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Kathleen Quinlan, Laura Linney, Gary Cole, Dennis Haysbert, Caroline Dhavernas, Bruce Davison
Director: Billy Ray
Director: Billy Ray
Producer: Scott Kroopf
Composer: Mychael Danna
Studio: Universal Pictures
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Reviews for Breach
(Chris Cooper)is the principal reason why this unspectacular, low-key study of the Hanssen national security fiasco is so effective.
Ray's careful emphasis on authenticity over thrills and psychology over action is impeded by this narrative's narrow window: there's so much we can't know about what Hanssen did and why.
Breach is competently made but, aside from Cooper's performance, there's nothing here worth getting excited about.
Though you know from the start just how it's going to end, Breach, based on the true story of a treasonous FBI operative, is an edge-of-the-seat thriller.
Subtle, complex, bleakly funny at times, but always utterly enveloping, one of the great studies in profoundly abnormal psychology.
Breach suffers from lavishing so much attention on a relatively minor figure.
Just when you're thinking every new American film belongs in the Bomb Squad, along comes Breach to win one for our side.
A riveting true-life thriller about the young FBI specialist who got the goods on the veteran agent selling secrets to Moscow.
Cooper's performance is fine. The script, however, is filled with dead-end tangents and unanswered questions.
Though it's being dumped in the wastelands in February, Breach is better than many of the pack of so-called prestige movies that were released at the end of last year.
A sharp cat-and-mouse game between Hanssen and Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe), the agent/trainee assigned to spy on him.
Filled with tension, deception and bravura acting, Breach is a crackling tale of real-life espionage that doubles as a compelling psychological drama.
I can imagine no better man [than Chris Cooper] to play the enigma at the center of Breach.
A thriller with no thrills, a true story minus a single interesting truth, a real-life tale with all the fascination scraped off to leave only a residue of tedious facts.
Breach is the sort of studiously serious, well-made, based-on-fact film that critics go crazy for and audiences find earnestly dull and eminently avoidable.
Breach is a good cloak-and-dagger tale and telling this complex story through O'Neill proves a brilliant way to watch Hanssen's schemes unravel.
We know from the outset that Hanssen, brilliantly played by Chris Cooper, is guilty. What we don't know is how the FBI caught him, and that's what director Billy Ray's carefully detailed and absorbing movie tells us.
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