BREACH ***½

Robert Philip Hanssen, a FBI agent, sold secrets to Russia for most of the 25 years he was an agent. He was finally caught in 2002 and is now serving a life sentence in Colorado. The training agent who became his assistant in order to help the agency catch him in the act of passing information left the agency after Hanssen's arrest and now practices law in Washington D.C. He served as a consultant during the making of this film.

The story begins a mere two months before Hanssen's capture (and you will know he was captured right from the start so I'm not giving anything away by telling you this fact). The training agent assigned to be Hanssen's assistant was told only the agency felt Hanssen was a sexual deviant and they wanted to obtain proof of the fact before the agency was embarrassed by this activity. At first the trainee didn't find anything wrong. Hanssen appeared to be a dour, religiously devout individual who went to church daily, prayed regularly, and was devoted to his wife and grandchildren. Only when the agent tried to quit because he thought there was no case was he told the real reason for the investigation and made privy to all that was going on.

I wasn't really looking forward to seeing this picture, thinking it would be slow and dull (like I found The Good Shepherd to be). Instead, right from the start I found myself engrossed in the story. The pace of the film is just right and there's enough tension to keep you concentrating on the action. The three lead characters do excellent jobs, especially Chris Cooper as Hanssen. If there is a flaw in the film, and I'm not sure it is one, we never find out why Hanssen did the spying. He was paid very well but money didn't seem to be his motivating force. Still, this is an absorbing story. If you like espionage films, this should definitely be on your "must see" list.