Breach
Screwing up a Good Flick
By D.W.

Breach is a very compelling true story that should have been a great movie. However, Hollywood liberals managed to screw this one up with their not so subtle political message that really detracts from the movie in a major way. Otherwise, it is probably worth seeing if you don’t want to kill of too off many brain cells or become a metrosexual. Just be aware that conservatives are attacked in a film that would have been naturally appealing to them.

The movie is about the real life FBI agent and Soviet spy Robert Hanssen (starring Chris Cooper) who was arrested in 2001 for selling secrets to the Russians for 22 years. Hanssen made over 1.4 million dollars from the Russians for his treason and is currently serving life in prison although he should have been executed.

Hanssen began spying in 1984 when he told the Soviets that General Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov of the GRU was selling secrets to the USA. Hanssen sold extensive information about MASINT, the methods the U.S. used to intercept Soviet transmissions. He also sold lists of agents that the KGB had a strong chance of recruiting and gave the Soviets a list of all American double agents.

Overall, Cooper does a good job of playing Hanssen and is a very convincing actor capturing the emotional torment and anxiety one would expect from Hanssen. The co-star, Ryan Phillippe cast as Eric O'Neill, the FBI Agent posing as Hanssen’s assistant but who is really out to catch him is not a compelling character. Phillippe starts off in an antagonistic relationship with Hanssen who subsequently takes him under his wing as a mentor once Hanssen learns that his assistant studied for the priesthood.

O'Neill’s effort was helpful to the investigation as he ascertained that Hanssen was storing information on his PDA and he was able to obtain it and download it. However, the FBI would have gotten Hanssen without the help of O’Neill and he was only one player in the game.

However, Breach shines extensive light on the role that faith, whether it was genuine or for show, played in Hanssen’s life.

Hanssen was a supernumerary member of the Catholic order, Opus Dei. He attended daily Mass at 0630 for more than a decade and his family was actively involved in church affairs. Left-wingers seem to delight in the hypocrisy of Hanssen’s lifestyle as if to demonstrate that conservatives are religious people who are all phonies in the way that liberals envision.

Who knows what actually motivated Hanssen and whether or not he adopted religion as a cover or to assuage his guilty conscious or make up for his treacherous deeds. The movie points out the obvious in that some people have double lives for whatever reason.

Hanssen’s duplicity is further highlighted by his sexual perversions. He videotaped himself during relations with his wife and sent them to a friend who posted it on the Internet. He also had a seedy affair with a stripper named Priscilla Sue Galey who went to Hong Kong with him. He gave her money, jewels, and a used Mercedes which was all done to supposedly save her soul. While all of this is true about Hanssen, his unseemly behavior is not characteristic to everyone who practices a religious faith.

Although his hypocrisy should be a part of the movie because it was part of Hanssen’s character, in Breach it became a central theme instead of supporting one. This emphasis detracts from the ingenious spycraft that Hanssen employed to avoid detection that could have made this movie great. There is little attention paid to his relationship with the Russians and his motives are not thoroughly explored, except that he is a two-faced duplicitous Christian.

Instead, the whole movie only focuses on the last two months of his career and fails to explore his early exploits and motivations that would have made this film extremely compelling. And it greatly overemphasizes O’Neill’s role in the affairs and the focus on his life which is more secular in nature diverts too much attention to O’Neill.

In essence, liberals screw up the movie because they want to make a point that conservatives, who Hanssen is portrayed as, are not the great Americans they claim to be. In the end they are just as perverted as everyone else, but unlike secular liberals, they deny it. In fact, the notion that a religious conservative could be a Soviet spy is novel and very interesting to the left wing.

It is as if liberals were better patriots than conservatives. But they fail to recognize that the communists and socialists of the world are near and dear to the philosophical positions of liberals. The left wing didn’t have to spy for the Soviets; they have incessantly spewed their talking points about advocating for a weak America for our enemies to exploit.

The movie also throws a few softballs to the Clintons, whom we all know did a bang up job protecting the nation from all kinds of security threats and spying. Hanssen takes a swipe at Hillary expressing his disapproval of women in pantsuits. He growls that "We don't need any more Hillary Clintons." No doubt that this was done to show that conservatives are mean and sexist. It also makes reference to how phony and superficial the investigations into the Clinton’s very real transgressions were.

Breach is probably okay if you are fascinated with spy flicks but Hollywood once again managed to screw it up by sending a bogus political message.

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