Details
Movie Description
Chris Cooper (ADAPTATION) gives a remarkable performance as complicated and bitter FBI agent Robert Hanssen in BREACH. Hanssen is a computer specialist who, after 25 years of service, is put under surveillance as a suspected sex offender. Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe, CRASH) is the ambitious young upstart they put on the job, assigning him to pose as Hanssen's new clerk in order to win his trust and keep an eye on his every move. Eric is dismayed to be put on such low-priority detail, accustomed as he is to investigating high-profile terrorism suspects. His reluctance is multiplied as he gets to know the subject of his inquiry; Hanssen is at first harsh towards his young secretary, but as he opens up, Eric gets to know and respect him as a family man of strong Catholic faith. Soon, however, Hanssen is infiltrating Eric's personal life and causing problems between him and his wife, Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas, HOLLYWOODLAND), and just when Eric is about to give up the case, he discovers that it is much bigger than he ever imagined. Eric finds himself in the middle of an investigation into the biggest security breach in U.S. history, forcing him to resort to dramatic and ingenious tactics in order to bring down the suspect. Director Billy Ray's first directorial effort was the dramatization of the Stephen Glass scandal at the D.C. magazine The New Republic in SHATTERED GLASS, and here he once again turns his eye--with great success--to a true story with a complex villain. Cooper's excellent characterization invites pity and horror in equal measure; his performance is well supported in this character-driven thriller by Laura Linney (KINSEY) as the hard-nosed agent leading the investigation, and Phillippe as the resourceful and introspective O'Neill.
Industry Reviews
"[A] thriller that manages to excite and unnerve....[Mr. Cooper] rouses our curiosity but never solicits our pity. It's enough that he and Mr. Ray make this monster human."
New York Times - Manohla Dargis (02/16/2007)
3 stars out of 4 -- "[A]n edge-of-the-seat thriller....BREACH is a compelling, intelligent drama."
USA Today - Claudia Puig (02/16/2007)
"[A] true-life tale of duplicity gone secretly insane..." -- Grade: B
Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (02/23/2007)
3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[The director] raises the stakes to life and death, and proves himself a filmmaker of uncommon talent and ambition."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (03/08/2007)
"BREACH absorbingly zeroes in on how the FBI nailed the most damaging turncoat in American history..."
Variety - Todd McCarthy (02/09/2007)
"[Cooper is a] venerable character actor who inhabits the man completely."
Box Office - Annlee Ellingson (04/01/2007)
4 stars out of 5 -- "Chris Cooper and Ryan Philippe are perfectly cast as the enigmatic, unlikely traitor and his secretive clerk..."
Ultimate DVD - Jason Caro (07/01/2007)
4 stars out of 5 -- "[At the centre of it is a chilling performance from Cooper as a hunted, lonely man, staring down the barrel of his conscience."
Uncut - Alastair McKay (09/01/2007)
3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's worth catching for Cooper's performance, while its fact-based tale of treachery will strike a chord in today's climate of suspicion."
Total Film - Neil Smith (09/01/2007)
"BREACH is an intelligent, superior entertainment....Engrossing..."
Sight and Sound - Samuel Wigley (09/01/2007)
3 stars out of 5 -- "There's good work from Laura Linney....The film will be remembered for giving Chris Cooper another top-flight role..."
Empire - Kim Newman (09/01/2007)
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