This psychological drama, written and directed by Billy Ray, shows that real life espionage may lack the car chases and gadgetry of Bourne or Bond, but is no less thrilling for it. Whilst most fictional thrillers punctuate the story with large action pieces, Breach keeps us on the edge of our seat with a disturbing portrait of FBI agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), the man responsible for the biggest security breach in US history.
Set two months prior to Hanssen's arrest, ambitious Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe), finds himself in the midst of a supposed investigation to uncover Hanssen's sexual deviancy. Assigned to pose as Hanssen's clerk, O'Neill keeps an eye on Hanssen's every move. As the two bond over their mutual Catholicism, O'Neill's relationship with his own wife is put under increasing pressure as the real purpose of the investigation unfolds.
Breach's success is largely due to Chris Cooper's complex portrayal of a family man's fall from grace, betraying his own country for S1.4 million in dollars and diamonds. The paradoxical nature of Hanssen comes from the importance he places on his own Catholicism, whilst at the same time secretly filming and distributing his own home-made porn. Cooper fills the role with such understated menace that you feel as unnerved as O'Neill, ably performed by a maturing Ryan Phillippe, as he attempts to gather sufficient evidence to bring him to justice.
With Breach, writer/director Billy Ray finds himself on familiar ground, having previously chartered the demise of another complex and duplicitous real-life character, journalist Stephen Glass, in 2003's Shattered Glass. Like Shattered Glass, Breach also engages through quality turns from its supporting cast. Laura Linney, as a work-orientated senior investigator, hits the right tone of hard-nosed efficiency, whilst Kathleen Quinlan as Hanssen's wife, is a near match in oddness to that of her husband.
Following the box office success of Casino Royale and the Bourne trilogy, Breach isn't likely to convert the masses with its talky take on spying, but the tension that builds over its two hour running time may leave you a little shaken, if not a little stirred.
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