Breach (Widescreen Edition)

Breach (Widescreen Edition)
by Billy Ray

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DVD details

Actor: Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Cole, Laura Linney, Ryan Phillippe
Director: Billy Ray
Brand: Universal Studios
Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto
Composer: Mychael Danna
Editor: Jeffrey Ford
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-12
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios

DVD Reviews of Breach (Widescreen Edition)

DVD Review: DON'T BUY THIS
Summary: 1 Stars

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.

DVD Review: Impecable Acting by Chris Cooper
Summary: 4 Stars

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.

DVD Review: Outstanding Acting by Chris Cooper
Summary: 5 Stars

This movie came out with apparently little or no hoop-la. It is definitely one of the best films of the year. I watched it 2 x.

DVD Review: The Capture of a Top Spy
Summary: 3 Stars

A young FBI agent is given a new assignment: to spy on a top FBI manager because of his unusual sexual hobby on the Internet. What can Eric O'Neill learn about Robert Hanssen, the highly skilled expert on Soviet Espionage? Is he as moral as his desk ornaments suggest? He belongs to the same church as Director Freeh. Top management in the FBI comes from the law enforcement side, not desk analysts. [Practical experience?] There are some humorous scenes in this serious drama. Their retirement age is 57; Hanssen will have 25 years of service. The meetings are at night in a public place, just like in novels. They finally tell Eric the truth about Hanssen - he likes strippers!

For years they could never find the suspected mole who was responsible for assets that disappeared. Finally they figured out the reason why [after paying millions to get the name of Ramon]. We see how a ruse is used to get Hanssen out of his office so his SD micro card can be copied. [Wouldn't a regular computer operate much faster?] We see a "power play" where a meeting is scheduled only to be canceled. We see how a traffic jam is created on a highway in order to delay a suspect. And a lie is hidden by a truth. They know how to open mail without leaving a trace. [Fingerprints on a VHS cassette?] Bugs in a car create static on the radio, or set off car alarms. Agent Eric wants one more try to get Hanssen to make his drop. "Can I trust you?"

Does the stress on Hanssen cause him to act strange? [Or is it guilt?] There is a dramatic scene in a park. [Washington DC is not a gun-free zone.] This seems to give confidence to Hanssen so he will make another drop of secret information. But this time he is captured. "Maybe now you'll listen." [What could he be thinking?] "Pray for me" seems ironic.

There seem to be as many locks on the doors in Washington DC as an apartment in New York city. Eric brought down "the worst spy in American history". [Really? What about Benedict Arnold?] Hanssen got paid for revealing sources on the other side. Didn't he realize it was only a matter of time before someone on the other side got paid the same way? Why did Eric quit the FBI? Having a wife born in a foreign country would handicap him [in my opinion].
This is an interesting film but it doesn't seem as good as "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" or "The House on 92nd Street".

DVD Review: Chris Cooper makes a great creep
Summary: 4 Stars

Cooper has played this same creepy guy role a million times, and that's because there's something about his expression that is perfect for these characters. It's a mix of righteousness, disappointment, creepy moralism with just the right amount of mystery mixed in. He is perfect as Robert Hansen, the spy who somehow managed to outwit the entire US security apparatus for 20 years while doing more damage than any spy in history. You wonder just how bad the government spy programs must be for one guy to be able to do this. The movie, though we know the ending, is suspenseful because the suspense revolves around the young agent assigned to help bring Hansen down, not whether or not the spy would be caught. Good script. See this asap.

Description of Breach (Widescreen Edition)

Inspired by true events Breach is a gripping and intense thriller that takes you deep inside the halls of the FBI for a top-secret investigation to uncover the greatest breach in the history of US intelligence. Featuring powerful performances by Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe nothing is as it seems in this suspenseful action packed film that will keep you riveted until the climactic ending.Runtime: 111 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:?ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS Rating:?PG - 13 UPC:?025193227621 Manufacturer No:?61032276

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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