Tuesday

You may not have heard of Breach. It's been out for almost a month now. There were posters, and I think I once saw a trailer on TV. But otherwise its release was fairly limited, and its reception quite muted. However, every review I read recommended it, and so yesterday I saw it. The story concerns the real-life events of an FBI agent who is handing secrets to the Russians. A young agent, played by Ryan Phillippe, is sent undercover as his assistant to take notes on everything he does, and find evidence of how he is leaking information. Whilst this may not sound original, the true nature of the story gives this film a weight it wouldn't have had otherwise. Really, though, this film is a character study of a man betraying his country. You never entirely dislike, or like, him. The director has kept a good balance. Unfortunately, beside Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe's performance is not that good. The dialogue sounded false and strained, and he didn't match the intensity of Cooper. As always with real-life stories, the pacing of events is hard to adapt to that of a movie, but here the job is done well. Most of the drama revolves around moments of 'he's coming back, get out of his room now!', which are quite routinely but nonetheless effectively done. Overall I'd definitely recommend this movie. It's intelligently and seriously made, with great performances from Chris Cooper and Laura Linney.