BREACH… a violation of my time!

The film is based on the true story of Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), an FBI agent who was ultimately convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) plays the young government employee assigned to Hanssen to monitor his daily activities and collect evidence against him, which ultimately brings him to his arrest. The story is intriguing and sounds dangerous enough but can the production team pull it off? The answer, no. The film is very cold and slow moving with hardly any real action. It’s mildly suspenseful, aside from a few heart-pounding scenes, and the ending, which was long and drawnout, was very anti-climatic and unsatisfying. If that’s how the real story took place, then fine. But this is a movie so make it more powerful and imaginative. They do it in every other “Based On” movie, that is change the way things actually happened to make it more cinematic. However, the character breakdown of O’Neill was somewhat intriguing giving his circumstances of basically having no undercover experience yet being thrown into one of the most important cases in FBI history. His ability to stand toe to toe with Hanssen and tell lies after lies while maintaining his stature deserves credit. And Cooper's portrayal of Hanssen was good, not his best work but he pulls it off. But over all the film lacked intensity and movement giving the nature of what the film is based on. If you pay close attention to the scene on the freeway where O’Neill talks Hanssen back in the car, you’ll notice that there are PEOPLE MISSING in the cars in the background that are stopped due to an accident. Apparently production ran out of money for extras, among other things. This film is rated PG-13 for violence, sexual content and language.

Comments

[Sarah]

Don’t get me started. I am never one to give up on a film halfway through, but my patience ran out. This was a case of, I have people to see, places to be and more movies to watch!

Slow is an understatement, and I think you are being far too kind on the acting. The empty cars and out of sink sound only added to my frustration, that and the double standards for choosing the cast. You can’t tell me that a female lead with a distracting bump that size on her forehead would have been picked for the part!