Breach (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]

Breach (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Review

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Just resaw this movie and was spellbound, not so much by the story (which was compelling), but by Chris Coopers action. Having really only gotten acquainted to Cooper in American Beauty where he in my mind topped the list of an awful lot of top rate performances, I must say his acting in this movie matched if not surpassed it.

Possibly because he in this movie finally was the lead and the audience then had 'more of him' he gave examples of his incredible array of facial expressions and emotions, and often subdued / hard to grasp ones. True acting is not about the lines they carry but the ability to truly make the audience identify with the character. Chris Cooper could carry a movie without uttering a word - his expressions, body language etc says more than a thousand words.

Many reviews focus on the accuracy of the portrayal of the case which frankly to me is secondary. For one no one truly knows what did happen and what caused Hanssen to do what he did... and due to the nature of the crime no one likely ever will - and is that really so important. It certainly takes nothing away from the compelling story in this movie and the sublime acting.

Breach (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Feature

Breach (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Overview

Inspired by true events this takes you deep inside the halls of the fbi for a top-secret investigation to uncover the greatest breach in the history of u.S. Intelligence. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/12/2007 Starring: Chris Cooper Ryan Phillipe Run time: 116 minutes Rating: Pg13

Breach (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Specifications

Is a mystery really mysterious when the end isn't a secret? Is espionage still thrilling when you know beforehand that the cloak has been pulled back and the dagger revealed? If it's a film as good as Breach, the answer is a resounding yes. Here is a true story that's genuinely stranger than fiction: FBI agent Robert Hanssen spent over 20 years selling government secrets to the Russians, making him the most egregious traitor in U.S. history. He was an Opus Dei Catholic and a devout churchgoer who was also a sexual deviant, a straitlaced company man so trusted by his employers that they once appointed him to lead an investigation designed to reveal who the spy was--when in fact it was Hanssen himself. And in the end, he was brought down in part by 26-year-old Eric O'Neill, an agent-in-training who worked with him for just two months. Chris Cooper, a 2003 supporting actor Oscar winner for Adaptation, is brilliant in the lead role, playing Hanssen as a dour, cold, ultraconservative cipher (women in pantsuits are just one of his peeves) whose conversations more closely resemble interrogations. Ryan Phillippe is also excellent as O'Neill, who's initially kept in the dark by the superior (Laura Linney) who assigned him to help expose Hanssen's treachery; thinking he's been brought in only to gather evidence about his boss' sexual transgressions, O'Neill finds himself caught in a profound moral conundrum, grudgingly admiring Hanssen even as his own marriage is severely tested by the older man's creepy and hypocritical intrusion into their lives, not to mention the FBI's strict rules against discussing the case.

Director Billy Ray (whose previous feature was also a true story: Shattered Glass, about the young writer who fabricated stories for The New Republic) and co-screenwriters Adam Mazer and William Rotko do an extraordinary job of maintaining the tension as the story leads to the conclusion that's been revealed in the first few frames (i.e., Hanssen's arrest in February 2001); the exquisite torture of O'Neill's having to keep Hanssen distracted while Bureau technicians search the latter's car is but one example. Moreover, notwithstanding the plot developments, the filmmakers manage to keep their focus on the personal interactions that are the film's key element: the relationships that O'Neill maintains with Hanssen, his father (a cameo by Bruce Davison), his wife (Caroline Dhavernas), and others are entirely credible. At once fascinating and horrifying, Breach is inarguably one of the best films of 2007. --Sam Graham






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Excellent Movie - Lumberjack -
Great Movie, gives you a realistic perspective of the life of an agent, the conflicts between the personal life and the demands of his job. The contrast of telling the truth and living the truth. Great reconstruction of one of the worst failures in the intelligence community.

"is it worth it?" - Medusa - Troy, MI
The story of the capture of Robert Hanssen, who stole military secrets from the US and sold them to the Russians, that grabs your attention and keeps you fidgeting on the edge of your seat!

It is amazing how a righteous individual can be extremely corrupted inside: It's called compensation. Chris Cooper is amazing as Hanssen , nearly to a point that you almost feel sorry for him in spite of how terrible his character is! Watch the amazing performance and "Pray for us".


DON'T BUY THIS - W. BUTLER - NEVADA USA
Literally or figuratively.

Firstly, not for one second did Chris Cooper persuade me he was Robert Hanssen. As he looks nothing like Hanssen the "suspension of disbelief" necessary to become involved in the outcome of this "thriller" was negated the moment one sees Cooper.

Photographs of Hanssen show a burly man with a toothy smile who one could well imagine having 6 children. The ideal type to be a career bureaucrat attending pointless good-old-boy meetings for 25 years. Whereas Cooper is a smaller acerbic type and a born eccentric. Any civil servant with that kind of weird personality would have been sent packing after 2 years of unflattering reviews. (I too write from experience)

I believe the producers cast Cooper with the sole intention of cashing-in on his unforgettable performance in "The Bourne Identity". Another sad comparison being the boss lady in both films was played by an attractive blonde. Laura Lynley never convinced me either she could be a hard-nosed spy bureaucrat (as did Joan Allen).

The less said about the nominal hero the better. This movie was obviously his "vanity project". A small fish whose need or ability to outshine Hanssen made no sense at all. Except as fiction - to introduce fake-tension into the latter stages of a "thriller" which had no natural thrills.

What a crazy genius like Hanssen requires is an insightful 2-hour documentary extending way beyond the phenomena of "turned spies". Orwell's DOUBLETHINK being so common in every walk of life no one can believe a word any politician says. Inevitably leading to our present-day loss of good-natured honest-to-God American values.

To sum up - making this movie - where one didn't exist - can now be seen as a waste of everybody's time and money.