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"Breach" is slow - slow enough to recommend waiting to rent for most people. It is a good story, but the material requires the methodical pacing that will bore viewers hoping for car chases and gun fights.

The most authentic part of the movie is its attention to detail. The interior shots look like the drab, boring government offices they portray. This wonderfully realistic touch will be lost on those that haven't toiled in such holes; it is nice that a movie finally depicts a governmental office that looks like one, instead of a futuristic, gleaming movie version that has more in common with the starship Enterprise.

Intentionally or not, the drabness goes beyond the office spaces (apologies to - yeahhh - Gary Cole). Laura Linney's hair is flat and dull, and she's as pale as a ghost. All of the exterior shots are cloudy with a 70% chance of showers, like DC all winter long. The somber look of the movie enhances theme, but will probably leave some viewers with a bad taste.

As a retired intelligence analyst, I enjoyed this movie because it reminds us that traitors exist, and they cause damage to our national security. Like "United 93" it isn't easy or enjoyable to watch, but the subject matter is thought provoking.

The FBI has finally identified a top level traitor who during the Cold War and afterwards sold costly secrets to the Communist bloc. It's not someone in a million years you would suspect. Robert Hanssen, a person of no apparent vices, a very religious Catholic, a member of Opus Dei, loving husband, father, and grandfather, as All American as you can get.

His espionage cost America dear, the trick now is to get him caught in the act so he can go away for a very long time, maybe even be subject to capital punishment. He's a clever guy Hansseen, as chief investigator Laura Linney says, he'd spot a phony cover story in a nano-second. Send someone in at first, but don't tell them the whole reason for the investigation.

Playing Robert Hanssen is Chris Cooper and the mole sent to catch a mole, Ryan Phillippe. Most of the film is a battle of wits between the two of them. The film takes on a whole different perspective however when Phillippe is told the real reason for the intense investigation of Cooper.

What's nice about Breach and what probably won't draw in the action fans is there is a minimum of violence in the film. Instead it's a character study of two men, fighting what seems to be an uneven battle of wits. Phillippe quite frankly seems overmatched at times, but he does think on his feet. Cooper is nobody's fool, mainly because he's fooled everybody for decades.

Favorite scene in the film is Cooper trying to articulate the reason for the treason to agent in charge, Dennis Haysbert. What it essentially comes down to is he's a brilliant man who's angry because he never got the respect he feels he deserved. He was going to show everyone just how smart he was.

Strange are the things that can make a traitor, spy, or terrorist. Though it does get slow at times, I think people will enjoy Breach and see a great acting duel with Cooper and Phillippe.

I went to see a preview of this film last night and I will say that I enjoyed it very much, although it did drag somewhat in spots. The acting especially by Chris Cooper was very good and he was the spy, and the central figure in this spy thriller. The rest of the cast was adequate for their portrayals. This is a fascinatingg story of Robert Hannsen the spy who rivaled all other spies by handing the Russians the largest quantity of United States secrets. There is not a lot of action in this film but it held your interest throughout the film, because it is based on a true story and the writers enhanced the story and I for one enjoyed it very much. Do yourself a favor and go see this very good spy story.

I was surprised at how effective this was. You know from the very beginning how it will end. You know because it is a true story that there will be no trendy plot twists. You expect, and find, that the young assistant is built around a cliché, as is Hanssen's Catholicism, which oddly ignores the role of Opus Dei in this venture, and focuses on prayer instead of devotion.

And there is a formulaic bit about damaging fathers and odd wives. More: there's the project command center that is drawn from movies and not from life. And finally, our hero is told the FBI's biggest secret in an open public place. This would never ever happen, and it is staged this way only to help the pacing of the thing in terms of stagecraft. And that DIA computer room, with the nice clean Cray-like machines, is from the same fantasy world as "Red October's" neon-lighted missile tubes.

But in spite of all this, it works. And especially compared to "The Departed," it works, simply, cleanly, deeply.

That's because the filmmaker decided early in the game that he was going to do what the Hong Kong "Infernal Affairs" did well and others copied: this business of actors playing characters who are actors. In this case, we have two such in the same boat.

We have a top information manager at the FBI working for the Russians and acting normal, even when leading the hunt for himself. We have the young under cover guy pretending to be simply a clerk. Each intuits the other is watching. The older man completely wins at the start, with the younger man eventually besting him in artifice. Its a calculation that the filmmaker makes, when deciding not to tell us why our young hero does what he does and where he gets the tools. In an ordinary story, that would hurt, but here it is a wise decision because such "explaining" would get in the way of the economy of the thing. And it is all about economic connection with us.

Its a bit counterintuitive that effective stories sometimes get better by lopping off story elements and information. But it is true. Some students of the Hanssen case believe that Hanssen's primary motive was to show his own importance (as a information security planner) by revealing holes in the system that he would have plugged. I wish this film would have worked with that a bit, because this notion of helping the system by hurting is system is both what the story could have been about and the means used to tell the story.

Still, a good one.

As a historical note, there's a reason folks from the FBI and CIA, even senior ones, can't wander into NSA computing facilities. Hanssen wasn't allowed, probably a good thing at the time. Opus Dei again.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

In 2001, the FBI clerk Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe), who is a specialist in computer but wants to be an agent, is invited by agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) to work with the senior agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) that had worked for many years in Soviet Union and now is assigned to protect the agency against electronic infiltration. Kate tells to Eric to write down the behavior of Hanssen in notes and send them to her since Hanssen would be a pervert under investigation of his sexual behavior.

Eric works with the bitter and rough Hanssen and he finds a family man and devout Catholic who earns his respect instead of a deviant. Further, his investigation and his relationship with Hanssen and his wife Bonnie (Kathleen Quinlan) affects Eric's wife Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas). Eric tells his opinion to Kate and she decides to tell the truth about Hanssen to him: he is a mole that sold many secrets to the Soviet Union and has compromised the identity of dozens of agents. Eric decides to go on in his assignment despite his friendship with Hanssen and the problems in his marriage.

"Breach" is an engaging and dramatic spy movie based on the true story of an FBI agent that was arrested for spying on 20 February 2001. I bought this DVD many years ago and only yesterday I decided to watch it and I found a great film.

The plot is developed in adequate pace and supported by magnificent performances of Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe and Laura Linney. The duel between Eric O'Neill and Robert Hanssen is fantastic. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Quebra de Confiança" ("Fail in Confidence")