Breach: Review By Arob

Breach suffers from fraud actually... In the trailers online, and in the previews on contemporary DVD releases, Chris Cooper’s character Robert Hanson is billed as a genius, but when you watch the film, unfortunately, this supposedly brilliant character does nothing clever to try and save himself… indeed at the end of the film he’s revealed to be the pathetic wretch we all suspected he was at the very beginning of the picture.

Here are the beats – A young agent is assigned to watch an old agent. The old agent is clean. The young agent loses faith. The old agent’s true nature is revealed. The old agent loses faith in himself to commit treason, the young agent deceives him to help him make one last breach – where he is caught and repents in a final elevator meltdown.

Ryan Philippe who plays Eric O’Neil does a very good job of playing an ambitious young FBI agent eager to become a better paid field agent. The introductory dialogue that focuses on his data storage manual is interesting and contrasts his ambition with his workmates nicely.

Unfortunately, in my opinion this protagonist Eric O’Neil suffers from his association with an East German wife of questionable political allegiance. It’s that question which makes it unfortunate – the story is written to suggest that she may be involved in the case, but the movie ends without addressing her previous questionable actions. By not focusing on her, the audience wonders about the hero’s allegiance and that undermines his desire and his quest for meaning as reinforced by his talks with his father, John O’Neil played by Bruce Davidson – Are you serving your country?

Kate Burrows played by Laura Linney was also subject to some bad dialogue and unfortunately awkward moments when forced to respond to lines like ‘Is it worth it?’

Written by Adam Mazer, William Rotko and Billy Ray. The script is strangely similar in many respects to The Good Sheppard, which is a much better movie because of its editing and better, higher quality insights into the twilight world of espionage.

Photographed by Tak Fujimoto even his work is unremarkable here… deliberately perhaps – Breach is a cold blue picture.

Arob awards this movie’s director, Billy Ray a six out of ten for Breach.