Misblog

Breach is a disappointing movie.¹

It tells us that "the FBI always gets its man" instead of telling us the rich and fascinating Hanssen story. How does a 25 year veteran FBI counter-intelligence agent go from new recruit to a supermax prison after a successful 22 year career as a Cold War Soviet spy?

A 2007 modern audience is unlikely to believe that Hanssen’s religious fanaticism, watching women’s sexual activity, and telling chat-channels about his wife’s sexual activity made him into a career spy.²

At the end of Breach the agent in charge of the takedown (Dennis Haysbert) puts an arrested Hanssen into the minivan and says "it’s a sad day for us all" – to bad Breach doesn’t tell us why?

-----notes-----

1. The acting of Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, and Caroline Dhavernas will save the movie from going directly into DVD release.

2. One scene(s) in the movie has a single 40ish female FBI agent (Laura Linney) calling Hanssen a sexual pervert (or equivalent) because he looks at pictures of naked women, tells stories of sex with his wife on chat lines, and tapes sex with his wife. Hello - you do not have to be from San Francisco to laugh at this - I'll bet Hanssen masturbated, too!

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