Review – Breach

I would not have guessed that the biggest espionage case in American history would be so gosh-awful boring. Here we get the story of FBI administrator Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) as seen through the eyes of a young clerk (Ryan Phillipe) placed in his office to spy on him. The result is a strangely superficial examination of one of the most serious cases of treason our country has ever faced. We get the standard spy thriller twists and turns. We get a lengthy portrait of our villain as a conservative anti-Communist, fanatical Catholic and good family man. We’re also given a portrait of the same man as an arch-traitor, paranoid nut and sexual deviant. What we never get – and what this movie desperately needed to give us – is any idea how one man could embody two such radically different lives. Absent any meaningful insight, this is nothing but a run-of-the-mill espionage picture, and a laconically-paced one at that. Mildly amusing