IMDb > Breach (2007)
Breach
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Breach (2007) -- Based on the true story, FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was ultimately convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union.
Breach (2007) -- Clip: O'Neill confronts Hanssen in the woods
Breach (2007) -- Behind The Scenes: Cooper in bullet proof vest
Breach (2007) -- Interview:  Laura Linney On working with real FBI agents
Breach (2007) -- Based on the true story, FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was ultimately convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union.

Overview

User Rating:
7.2/10   26,024 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 3% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers (WGA):
Adam Mazer (screenplay) &
William Rotko (screenplay) ...
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Contact:
View company contact information for Breach on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
16 February 2007 (USA) more
Tagline:
Inspired by the true story of the greatest security breach in U.S. history more
Plot:
Based on the true story, FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was ultimately convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union. full summary | full synopsis
Awards:
1 nomination more
NewsDesk:
(65 articles)
Story of Gears of War Movie Not Following Games?
 (From Screen Rant. 8 December 2009, 9:22 PM, PST)

The Story For Gears of War Movie
 (From GameRant. 8 December 2009, 8:59 PM, PST)

User Comments:
focused spy drama more (182 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Hanssen (USA) (working title)
The 11th Hour (USA) (working title)
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MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual content and language.
Runtime:
110 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Filming Locations:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Hanssen tells O'Neill, "if I ever catch you in my office again, you're gonna be pissin' purple for a week." The real Robert Hanssen's undoing was a George S. Patton quote about "the purple-pissin' Japanese", a quote which Hanssen was fond of repeating. The FBI had paid a Russian agent $7 million for the KGB's file on the American mole - known to the KGB at the time only as Ramon Garcia. The file included a note of the mole about "purple-pissing Japanese" and Robert Hanssen became the prime suspect in the investigation. The FBI arrested Hanssen three months after receiving the file. The film concerns the last two months of the investigation. more
Goofs:
Factual errors: When Eric O'Neill removes Robert Hanssen's Palm Pilot from his briefcase you can clearly see the Palm Pilot Model is a Palm III, which doesn’t use an SD memory chip, which is lying next to it. This Palm has a 8 meg of internal memory only - no External memory card. more
Quotes:
Eric O'Neill: What if he's smarter than I am?
Kate Burroughs: A couple of years ago, the bureau put together a task force. Lots of assets had been disappearing. So this task force was formed to find the mole who was giving them up. Our best analysts poring over data for years looking for the guy, and they could never quite find him...
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Movie Connections:
References Secret Agent (1936) more
Soundtrack:
Near You more

FAQ

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84 out of 100 people found the following comment useful.
focused spy drama, 26 February 2007
7/10
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

On February 18, 2001, Robert Hanssen, a 56-year old FBI agent, was arrested, by the very agency he worked for, for selling secrets to the Russians. He was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to 15 charges of espionage. This is widely considered to be the worst case of treason in the history of American intelligence.

"Breach" looks at the story through the eyes of Eric O'Neill, the young, up-and-coming junior agent assigned by investigators in the bureau to spy on Hanssen. In the position of personal assistant to Hanssen, O'Neill works to uncover evidence against his boss that will help to strengthen the legal case gradually being built against him.

"Breach" is a fairly solid political thriller, less concerned with big action scenes than with examining the relationship between these two very different men set in unwitting opposition to one another. Hanssen himself is a mass of immense hypocrisies and contradictions. A devout Catholic, he attends Mass religiously, recites the rosary everyday, and looks with disdain upon homosexuals, women who wear pants and anybody seemingly to the left politically of Rush Limbaugh and Ronald Reagan. Yet, despite his outward display of moral rectitude, Hanssen secretly distributes porn videos of his wife (she is unaware of their existence) and betrays his country by turning over classified information to the enemy. O'Neill finds himself simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by the man, who manages to be both prig and libertine at one and the same time. O'Neill knows that what Hanssen is doing is terribly wrong, yet he can't help falling under the spell of a man he knows that, under other circumstances, he might well come to value as a friend and a mentor.

Ryan Philippe is subtle and brooding as the taciturn O'Neill, reluctant to condemn the man he's been sent to bring down until all the facts are in. It's true that his performance is a bit of a Johnny-one-note at times, but since the function of the character is that of observer rather than catalyst, Philippe's self-effacing underplaying seems the right editorial choice here. Plus, it clears the deck for Chris Cooper to step to the forefront with his finely-tuned interpretation of Hanssen that brings real dimensionality and depth to the film. He turns Hanssen into a richly complex figure, a man who demands strict adherence to form yet who systematically violates that very rule at the deepest core of his own being. A stickler for protocol and standards and unforgiving of those who fall short of them, Hanssen somehow fails to see his own glaring weaknesses while managing to condemn others for theirs. Through his perceptive performance, Cooper makes it possible for us to see this walking paradox in all his complexity and humanity.

The movie itself, written by Adam Mazer, William Rotko and Billy Ray, and directed by Ray, is a trifle plodding at times and doesn't feel as vital as perhaps it should given the seriousness of the issues it is addressing, but, for the most part, we welcome its unfrenetic approach to the subject. It doesn't try to gin up the melodrama or unravel its human enigma - rather it presents him as truthfully and impartially as possible, then leaves it up to the viewer to render the final judgment.

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Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Sorry to ppl who liked it but i was SO BORED! goodgirlgonebad1
Don't you feel a little sorry for him? Kubrick_Reincarnated
The Stereotype is Soooo Predictable kevlut77
TRUE STORY is in MASTERSPY with William Hurt MexiCAN777
Dennis Haysbert sylvia67
I thought the Russians are now our friends mgm1212116
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