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A Spy in the Ointment
By bukkhead | June 22, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘BREACH’
Written by Adam Mazer and William Rotko
Directed by Billy Ray
Rated PG-13
110 mins.
2 stars
Breach begins with a news reel from 2001, then Attorney General John Ashcroft speaking to the recent arrest of Robert Hanssen, America’s worst spy. Then we see a “two months” earlier blurb, and we meet Robert himself. So much for plot…
And if there’s no plot, then the movie is going to be about character, right? Chris Cooper gives us the scowly jowly face that we loved so much in American Beauty, and wields it in church, in the FBI offices, in his private den, in front of the FBI photographer recording his 25 years of service. Not much there. Maybe we are supposed to pay closer attention to Eric O’Neil, played by Ryan “Reese Witherspoon’s husband” Phillippe. Eric wants to be an agent, and we know because he that’s what he tells his wife, as they lie in bed together, fully clothed, on a chilly Sunday morning. And by the end of the movie, he doesn’t want to be an agent anymore. Now there’s some killer character development.
The problem, it seems, as Eric is getting tired of all the lies he has to tell. He has to lie to Robert, of course, his boss, since he’s been assigned to spy on him. He has to lie to his wife because, well, he can’t tell her the truth (that would be treason), and he can’t tell her nothing (that would be convenient). He also has to lie to, um, you know. Okay I’m not sure about that one.
It’s a sophomoric way to critique a movie, but I am compelled to dredge up that old axiom from Creative Writing 101: Don’t tell, show. Unfortunately for Breach, there’s all telling, no showing. Some people have called this movie a “thriller,” but there’s nothing going on. Occasionally there’s a bit when one man is going through another man’s personal effects as the other man approaches the door, but that’s not much to base a movie on.
Okay, fine, if we don’t have plot, or character, how about mood? Lots of church scenes. Lots of DC in the cold. Music by Mychael Danna, slow and eerie. Is it contemplative? Sad? Introspective? Nah, it’s just dull. In a movie about spies, you expect a tension, but the only tension you get is the anxiety of thinking there won’t be any pay-off at the end.
Because there isn’t any. You’re sitting there, waiting, and waiting, hoping something will be different at the end of the movie. But nothing happens. Nothing that you care about. Hannsen says, as he is being arrested “Maybe now you’ll listen to me,”(a statement entirely unrelated to anything else in the film.) It’s almost as if this story was made into a feature because it was too dull to be a documentary.
Like spy movies? This isn’t one. Like Chris Cooper? Get a photo, it’ll be just the same. Like Ryan Phillippe? Rent I Know What You Did Last Summer. At least in that movie, he actually has to act.
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