Breach (2007)

I watched Breach on the small screen, over the course of a few days--life intervened as it so peskily will. Every time I returned to the movie, I had to back up several scenes so I could re-enter the world of espionage and suspense created by director Billy Ray. The filmmaker had a double challenge in telling the true story of events leading up to the capture of double agent Robert Hanssen, who, during his nearly thirty years with the FBI, sold millions of dollars worth of classified materials to the Soviet Union. Ray has risen to both challenges with great success.

His first challenge was to avoid the easy but unsubtle tricks characterized by less successful thrillers. The only music in the film is inherent in a scene; there is no score to telegraph the mood intended by the action. This increases the load on the writers, the actors, and the camera work, which is shared to great effect by all parties. Jeffrey Ford has edited Tak Fujimoto's photography into a seamless and visually taut piece. Delivering subtly contained and deeply realized performances are the versatile Chris Cooper as the tightly wound and obsessively Catholic Hanssen; a more serious and mature Ryan Phillipe than we've seen before as the ambitious Eric O'Neill, who clinches the sting on his new boss; and the intelligent and always solid Laura Linney as the furrow-browed and world-weary Kate Burroughs, the agent in charge of the operation. Ray gets a screenplay credit (along with Adam Mazer and William Rotko, who co-wrote the story); this talented trio has put its collective ear to the ground and created a screenplay that resonates with unembellished authenticity.

This brings us to Mr. Ray's second challenge, which was to tell a story whose ending everyone not living under a rock knows. Since it is not waiting to see how the movie ends that grips us, it is by the telling that we are ensnared. Breach is not Ray's first docudrama. He wrote and directed Shattered Glass (2003), based on the young D.C. journalist Stephen Glass, who was hoist by his own petard after fabricating over half of his reports at The New Republic. Breach demonstrates marked growth in Ray's discipline and consistency of style, and gives thriller aficionados plenty to look forward to from this talented young director.

Moulin Rouge (2002)

For lovers of the musical theatre (the original venue for musical plays, older than its little stepsister, the movie musical), the PR for Moulin Rouge was very tempting, especially given the calliope of popular songs featured in the soundtrack. Viewed on the small screen (as I did), it no doubt lost some of its dazzle, but I think if I’d seen it in a movie theatre I might have become dizzy. The production is nearly blinding in its colorfulness, and there is so much going on visually that it is hard to take it all in. It is a jangling jumble of many entertainments--circus sideshow, fantasy, romance, dark comedy, and burlesque. It’s as if Baz Luhrmann made every movie he’s ever wanted to make, all at once.

The performances were fine, and there were plenty of compelling moments. The sweet singing voices of both Satine (Nicole Kidman) and Christian (Ewan McGregor) were the biggest surprise. Unfortunately, I didn’t really feel their chemistry and the contrast between their mutual love and their disdain for the bad duke (Richard Roxburgh) could have been drawn more clearly for better dramatic effect. Jim Broadbent--who played the conflicted Zidler, proprietor of the Moulin Rouge--of all the actors, seemed to grasp the need for a bigger-than-life performance. John Leguizamo, a wonderful character actor, had too little to do as Toulouse-Lautrec.

The movie only partly worked, and it was the basic innocence and universality of the appealing story that saved it from finally exploding like an ambitious science experiment with too many ingredients.

Jungle Fever (1991)

Spike Lee made Jungle Fever in 1991, but I never saw it until a couple of weeks ago. I can't say why I never got around to seeing this movie--it was partly accidental, I'm sure, because I have been a fan of Lee's other movies, especially Do the Right Thing.

Lee has a keen eye and ear for a day in the life of New York City, and his finger firmly on the pulse of the city's racial maelstrom. Jungle Fever painfully explodes the notion that black-white relations have improved all that much since the Civil Rights movement. The large and thoroughly accomplished cast is headed by Wesley Snipes as the upwardly mobile architect Flipper Purify, an apparently happy family man in Harlem, whose white bosses (the smarmy Tim Robbins and Brad Dourif) hire the young Italian-American Angie Tucci (Anabella Sciorra) from Bensonhurst as his assistant, against Flipper's protestations. I have never seen Snipes as effective (bright, dignified, and deeply conflicted). The torrid affair that ensues between the co-workers sets off a series of aftershocks among people on both sides of midtown, among them Flipper's father--the self-righteous Reverend Doctor Purify (the late Ossie Davis), who is addressed and referred to as the "Good Reverend Doctor"--and his heartbreakingly enabling mother, Lucinda Purify (Ruby Dee); Samuel L. Jackson (Gator Purify) as his tragic, crack-addicted brother; Halle Berry, a powerhouse as Gator's addict girlfriend, Vivian; Lonette McKee as Flipper's cuckolded wife, Drew (who brings a proper rage to the role); and Lee as his trusted friend, Cyrus, whose careless pillow talk ignites the conflagration. Angie's family seethes with racism and resentment--Frank Vincent as Mike, her father, and Michael Imperioli and David Dundara as her protective older brothers, James and Charley. Filling out the magnificent ensemble are John Turturro (the sole voice of reason among the vituperating Bensonhurst gang), Nicholas Turturro, Michael Badalucco, Queen Latifah, and the incomparable late Anthony Quinn (as John Turturro's bitter, widowed father).

I can't name another American movie with such a star-studded marquee, and certainly very few in which the characters have all been given such real and moving dialogue. The context and trappings may seem a touch dated to some current viewers, and some may complain that the movie is populated with stereotypes. Handled by a less skillful writer and filmmaker, Jungle Fever might have fallen on the sword of cliche. But cliche or not, the lesson of the movie is timeless: You've got to be taught to hate and fear, and also not to.