Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story

I had to watch it for my class, but it was an interesting television movie. William Hurt did phenomenal with his character as Robert Hanssen. I am still used to him as the character from Hulk.

The movie was too long, so it was challenging to watch it through. The fact that this is based on a true story is surprising. If I were to recommend this to anyone, it would be for documentary related topic, but not for watching an entertainment movie like Avengers and all. I still enjoyed it and learned a lot information.

Plot - 7.5/10 Characters - 9/10 Acting - 10/10 Length - 5/10 Beginning - 6/10 Ending - 6/10

Overall - 7/10.

There really is no point in arguing over what drove Hanssen(although it is interesting to note the strong, equivocal feelings he seems to arouse). Hanssen will always be a deeply controversial and contradictory character.

What should be celebrated about Masterspy is the fact that the filmmakers didn't take the easy option and try to simplify Hanssen in order to please nonplussed viewers. Indeed, in an interview Mailer, who wrote Masterspy, said he found Hanssen the most fascinating living subject he has ever studied, and this shows in his careful, even a little obsessive screenplay. And Schiller's subdued, unfussy direction only highlights his own fascination with Hanssen in the form of his leading man, William Hurt. And Hurt really delivers as his performance drives the film- I can't think of another actor, let alone an American, who would dare portray Mailer's strange Hannsen and grasp his confused, contradictory but insatiable needs. In his endeavour, Hurt is strongly supported by inspired company who maximise their own well-written roles, Boyle's seedy, sadistic father Howard, Mary-Louise Parker's loving wife Bonnie, Ron Silver's sympathetic boss Mike, and Sthraitern's strange best friend Jack (though even he comes across as pretty normal alongside Hanssen!).

Television is increasingly becoming the only place for focused, thoughtful studies of complex characters in adult situations. And Masterspy is Television at its best. Still, it is not perfect. Mailer's old-fashioned view of women does affect the film slightly, especially in the case of a one-dimensional harridan female FBI intern, and Louise-Parker's Bonnie cries out for more screen time. Perhaps this is part of a more general fault, which is that the film needed to be longer (it seems too long for a TV Movie and too short for a Mini Series, and as far as I can understand has been billed as both). More detail on Hannsen's youth would have been desirable (perhaps a young actor to fill in for the Middle Aged Hurt?) and Hannsen's bizarre relationship with his best friend Jack needed more screen time.

In the IMDb credits for this movie, it says that Leonid Sherbarshin and Viktor Cherkashin were played by 'Themselves'.

I can quite definitely state this is not the case. Sherbarshin is more than a foot taller than the actor playing him in this movie. Cherkashin was born in 1932 and therefore is considerably older than the person playing him.

Further, in the movie, when Shebarshin first appears, right after Hanssen first contacts the KGB in 1985, a caption says he is the head of Soviet Foreign Intelligence. In 1985 the head of Soviet Foreign Intelligence was Vladimir Kryuchkov. Sherbarshin did not become FCD head until 1988.

Ironically, the credits state 'Alexander Kalugin....?'. This person was actually played by the real former KGB Colonel and defector Oleg Kalugin.

In reality the person who stole the Hanssen file from the KGB archive as a retirement plan was not paid $20M for it as stated in the movie, but more like $7M, and that only in installments. However the SVR somehow managed to lure him back to Moscow where he was jailed for 18 years.

Other than these minor points this film is largely faithful to the major facts of the case.

Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller have collaborated four times for TV; they specialize in examining the life of somebody who is talented, a high achiever and desperately unhappy. Marilyn Monroe, O. J. Simpson and Robert Hanssen certainly achieved much, while it might be argued that Gary Gilmore (The Executioner's Song) managed to bring capital punishment back to the United States.

I did not see much success in bringing Hanssen to life. Admittedly he's a very strange bird, a loner in an organization (the FBI) that prizes teamwork and conformity above all else. It seems he could never manage to conceal his disdain for the mediocrity he saw all around him in the New York office. The most telling moment comes in the park with Ron Silver, his boss telling him he's got to dumb down and play the game if he ever expects to rise in the ranks. The expression on William Hurt's face is an amalgam of contempt, self-pity and a touch of Why Me, Anyhow.

This is one of the most accurate portrayals of a spy. As anyone who knows this case knows, Hanson is responsible for the deaths of about 100 Russians who fighting against the various bloodthirstily dictatorships that have run Russia for 100 years.

Hanson was a sociopath with a deep narcissisms as well. Spending large sums on clothes, expensive cars and prostitutes.

He set up a secret room in his house so friends could watch his wife naked, and sometimes of him having relations with her. He videotaped her as well and distributed those tapes to acquaintances.

In return for money he helped the dictatorships in Russia despite himself being more well aware than the average person of just how bloody and bloodthirsty that dictatorship was. He endangered the lives of everyone in the world as well destroying accurate assessments of Soviet plans. Even more outrageously he gave to the Russians the extremely secret US government "continuity of government" plan. That is the plan for who has authority to do what in the event of a decapitation strike, and vastly increase the risk of a Russian first strike and all out nuclear war.

This film does a good job of showing Hansenn's reactions as the spy hunt progresses. Sadly it does not show the lives of freedom fighters in Russia and Eastern Europe that he destroyed.