Robert Hanssen was always going to be found dead in his cell. In 2002, he was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole. Until his death this June, he spent 23 hours a day in solitary confinement at a supermax facility in Florence, Colorado. Hanssen was an FBI agent who spied for Russian intelligence, and his crimes have been described as “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history.” There are two primary reasons Hanssen’s story is largely forgotten. He was caught in February 2001, an era before 9/11 permanently changed domestic and foreign policy in our country. The second is because Breach, the thriller about the efforts to catch Hanssen, suffered from terrible timing.
Sort of like the fate that befell Michael Clayton, Breach had the misfortune to be released in 2007, one of the best years for movies in a generation. It made respectable money, but other films like Atonement, No Country for Old Men, Zodiac, Juno and There Will Be Blood dominated the conversation that year. Directed with workmanlike precision by Billy Ray, who got some art-house attention with the 2003 newsroom thriller Shattered Glass, Breach is the sort of film that unfolds seemingly without effort because its choices are intuitive and the story is irresistible. In fact, it is incredibly difficult to make a film like this, and we know that is the case because it happens so rarely.
Our entry point is Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe), a young FBI employee (not a full agent) who clerks for Hanssen (Chris Cooper) and has an additional, secret assignment to monitor him. At first, O’Neill resents his undercover work because his handler Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) only tells O’Neill that Hanssen is a sexual deviant, the kind of behavior that makes him vulnerable to foreign spies. The two men develop a rapport over their shared Catholic faith, despite Hanssen’s severe nature, and then Burroughs pulls the rug out: she tells O’Neill that Hanssen is a traitor, and the FBI has been developing a case against him for years. They need to catch Hanssen red-handed, so Breach follows O’Neill as he struggles to trick Hanssen without him being the wiser.
Unlike most spy films, Breach does not have gadgets or clandestine killings. Instead, Ray creates a series of set pieces that put O’Neill in a position where he must inconvenience his boss, like when they plant surveillance on his car. They are tense because Phillipe and Cooper are fiercely intelligent actors, and the dialogue escalates suspense through O’Neill’s brilliant improvisation. Both characters nearly lose their cool, and because Hanssen has an unhinged streak, that means O’Neill finds himself in downright dangerous situations where erratic behavior might lead to both their deaths. It is less of a traditional thriller, and more of an actor’s picture. By the time Hanssen pulls a gun and starts screaming “How can I TRUST YOU,” there is a sense that emotion and intuition are the most important tools in spy craft. In that sense, this film is an early precursor to the TV series “The Americans,” which had more elaborate set-pieces but maintained that personality-driven core.
The supporting cast includes character actors known for appearing as smooth professionals. In their own unique way, they all add credibility to the material. Dennis Haysbert and Gary Cole all play high-ranking FBI Agents, and they have a mordantly funny way of undercutting O’Neill’s frayed nerves. But the key performance is from Caroline Dhavernas, who plays O’Neill’s wife Juliana. He cannot tell her about his mission, even when the O’Neills and the Hanssens see each other socially. But Juliana is not demure like Hanssen’s wife (Kathleen Quinlan), so there is a second layer of tension about whether she loses patience with her husband, or figures out what he’s really doing. Many scenes unfold with several layers of subtext, which adds richness to dialogue that might otherwise sound ordinary.
Breach is set around Washington, DC and its surrounding suburbs. Unlike the vast majority of films that depict our nation’s capital, Billy Ray gets the vibe exactly right. There is no glamor here: Eric and Juliana live in a crummy apartment, and the FBI offices look like the kind of dreary federal building where you can feel the asbestos seeping into your pores. The geography is also accurate, though only obvious to DC natives: characters take the right public transportation, and a plausible traffic jam because a significant plot point. None of these details directly matter to Breach’s success, and yet that verisimilitude underscores a steadfast commitment to the material. Sure, it has its share of distortions and composites, but that is a feature, not a bug, for a film like this. By the time O’Neill and Hanssen see each other last time, a footnote totally fabricated by Ray and his co-screenwriters, the exaggeration is welcome because Cooper’s performance – suggesting a broken man on the verge of emotional collapse – is almost worthy of pity. Almost.
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