Breach: Critic Reviews

In truth, the movie leaves us scratching our heads. And yet, for most of it, I was held -- by Chris Cooper's dour portrayal of walled-off demons, by the director's fascination with a deception that, on the surface of it, doesn't add up.

The thriller Breach manages to excite and unnerve despite our knowing the ending.

An interestingly told tale: melancholy, thoughtful, and very un-American.

Though you know from the start just how it's going to end, Breach, based on the true story of a treasonous FBI operative, is an edge-of-the-seat thriller.

As he proved with Shattered Glass and as he proves again with Breach, director Billy Ray has become the John Ford of Washington culture.

There's precious little espionage where we can see it, and that's what makes the movie such a compelling and eerily effective little drama.

It's not interested in cheap thrills or playing gotcha with the audience. (Which isn't to say parts of it aren't exhilarating.)

A sharp cat-and-mouse game between Hanssen and Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe), the agent/trainee assigned to spy on him.

An uncompromising study in the gradual decay of a soul.

I can imagine no better man [than Chris Cooper] to play the enigma at the center of Breach.

This isn't one of those labyrinthine works of deception that doubles back on itself at every turn. Breach is content to tell a strong story with the utmost efficiency and let its cast do the heavy lifting.

It's not just that Breach looks terrific compared with the dreck Hollywood has thrown on screen so far this year, though there is that. No, Breach has the early-season intelligence and intriguing casting of last year's Inside Man.

As he proved in Shattered Glass, Ray has a talent for nailing the essence of an ecosystem.

The unexciting look and feel of the movie wouldn't have bothered me if the filmmakers had penetrated Hanssen's skull a little.

About the only thing ineffective about Breach is the humdrum title. Everything else in this smart thriller works like a perfectly crafted Latin Square puzzle.

Chris Cooper is the whole, haunted show in Breach.

Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen is now serving a life sentence for his long career as a Russian and Soviet spy, but this rote thriller implies he should have done prison time just for being Catholic.

A riveting true-life thriller about the young FBI specialist who got the goods on the veteran agent selling secrets to Moscow.

If you don't see enough of personality-deficient paper-pushers and sterile office environments on your daily rounds, this film will offer just what you've been missing.

Breach is the sort of studiously serious, well-made, based-on-fact film that critics go crazy for and audiences find earnestly dull and eminently avoidable.

Because this espionage thriller is based on true events, it's a given that the bad guy will be caught. But [director] Ray builds an intriguing maze around the how, seen through the eyes of the audience's proxy, a young FBI man sent to spy on a colleague.

Ultimately, the movie soars because of the inspired casting of Chris Cooper as Hanssen.

Breach is a tough, bare-knuckle look at the new cyber-terrorism that holds you captive from start to finish.

Just as somber as The Good Shepherd, the most recent domestic spy drama, but more tightly focused, Breach absorbingly zeroes in on how the FBI nailed the most damaging turncoat in American history.

Though it's being dumped in the wastelands in February, Breach is better than many of the pack of so-called prestige movies that were released at the end of last year.