CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 02/16/07

All the President's Spies

By den shewman

Adam Mazer and William Rotko and Billy Ray turn the true tale of trapping one of the most dangerous traitors in the history of the country into and outstanding drama, a psychological pas de deux pitting the coming-of-age FBI operative Eric O'Neill against the complex and, yes, even sympathetic traitor Robert Hanssen. Breach is a quiet, nerve-wracking film, a piece of great writing that proves that they really do still make movies for adults.

Breach

Adam Mazer & William Rotko and Billy Ray (latter also directed)

Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is an FBI operative who hopes to make agent with the help of his hard work, proposal for a new database system, and more than a little confidence. Then O'Neill, in the field surveilling enemy targets, is pulled into office duty to keep an eye on suspected pervert Robert Hanssen (a phenomenal Chris Cooper). Hanssen is a distinguished, if at times disgruntled, counterintelligence officer, the kind of executive who will never get the corner office but everyone comes to for advice. As the days wear on, O'Neill not only doesn't see evidence of Hanssen's allegedly lewd conduct, but he starts to like his gruff, bitter, nose-to-the-grindstone boss as they bond over computer knowledge and the devout, conservative Hanssen's attempts to bring O'Neill closer to God. It's only when O'Neill calls out his assignment as a witch hunt to his real boss, agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney), that he's informed of the true nature of their Hanssen's hunt: the senior agent has sold billions of dollars worth of information to the Russians, causing uncountable problems and the deaths of dozens of operatives. Now O'Neill is in deep and for the long haul. But the pressure wears on the young operative's marriage and his soul (one that the devout Hanssen is trying to save, ironically), and Hanssen begins to suspect that someone might be watching him.

A smart, taut drama with lives and even souls at stake, Breach takes a massive amount of information from the real-life case, a huge number of personnel and situations and boils it all down to two faces: Eric O'Neill and Robert Hanssen. These two men will embody all the struggles that happened in real life, while each answering for themselves the central question: not "Will O'Neill be able to trap the spy?" but "What would both O'Neill and Hanssen each do for God and country?" Make no mistake, the irony here is sweet: Hanssen is a better agent, more devout Catholic, and more caring husband than O'Neill. If it just weren't for all those deaths he's caused… and the secrets he's sold… and secretly videotaping himself and his wife Bonnie (Kathleen Quinlan) having sex to show his friend…

And that's part of the fun. As the director and the last set of hands on the script, Ray not only has brilliant material to work with but is blessed with great actors—including Gary Cole, Dennis Haysbert and Bruce Davison (in what amounts to a great cameo as O'Neill's father)—who underplay the drama. Such work befits the story about a man who so underplayed his double life that in real life he once headed up the task force created to find the mole: himself. (Check out this great Hanssen article on CrimeLibrary.com.)

For a story that takes place in such prosaic places as offices, apartments, and cars, Breach is a wonderful study in how to create tension without gun battles (by my count guns are fired twice, and once was at a firing range). The tension in Breach is derived from many things: O'Neill's guilt over entrapping an innocent man; once he's "read in" on the real case against Hanssen, O'Neill's fear that he'll be found and possibly killed by his boss; the friction between O'Neill and Burroughs, O'Neill and his wife, and O'Neill and practically every aspect of his life. Interestingly, Ray's directorial debut, Shattered Glass (which I rented on the way home from the Breach screening), also deals with a man ferreting out a traitor; in this case, an editor unraveling the lies of Stephen Glass, a journalist who liked to invent stories, not report them.

It's interesting that while the two main characters of this piece are male (although very different men), they are surround by women: O'Neill's boss Burroughs, his East German wife Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas), and Hanssen's wife Bonnie. O'Neill is pulled between the two opposites: his unmarried boss' role for him as dutiful agent, and his wife's role for him as dutiful husband (and did I mention that an assignment that you can't tell anyone about can look awfully like cheating?). Meanwhile, Bonnie works as her husband's adjunct proselytizer to attempt to bring little lost sheep O'Neill closer to the Church (in real life, Hanssen was a supernumerary of the Catholic sect Opus Dei). While there are other men around, to be sure, it's interesting to see how the three writers

Showing that great drama can arrive in the quietest moments, even in a spy story, Adam Mazer and William Rotko and Billy Ray's script for Breach uses dialogue, characterization and silence better than most action movies use car chases and gunfights.

Breach

Universal Pictures
Rated PG-13; 110 min.

Buy tickets now

Den Shewman wrote a script review for Creative Screenwriting five years ago, and somehow ended up as editor-in-chief of Creative Screenwriting Magazine and CS Weekly. Yet he co-wrote an episode of The New Adventures of Robin Hood (which, according to the producers, was the #2 show in France at the time) and never ended up as executive producer of Maid Marian: Bring It On. More proof that life is not fair.

Breach courtesy Universal Pictures

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