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.