O'Neill, antsy for a high-profile mission that could allow him to prove himself, is hired by Katherine Burroughs (Laura Linney) to become Hanssen's assistant in an effort to capture Hanssen in the act of engaging in seedy sexual behavior like harassing interns or watching porn. Though O'Neill at first finds himself admiring Hanssen, he soon discovers that the real reason the FBI is asking O'Neill to spy on Hanssen is that Hanssen is selling top-secret information to foreign operatives. Now the clock is ticking to see if O'Neill can help the FBI get the information they need to prosecute Hanssen. Can this rookie agent manage to take down one of the most dangerous spies in U.S. history?
As Breach begins, the script, penned by Billy Ray as well as Adam Mazer and William Rotko, is nothing more than an Aaron Sorkin to a grating degree. The influence of Sorkin is seen most notably in how Hanssen talks non-stop in extended allegorical monologues in any given situation and while the script makes his homophobic and sexist nature so blatant that it's impossible to see why O'Neill would find himself briefly enamored with the guy, a character turn that's rushed through too quickly to leave all that much of an impact. To boot, Breach plays the idea of Hanssen being nothing more than a Church loving guy whose grandkids love to the moon and back in too heavy-handed of a manner that it's not really a shocker when it turns out there's something shadier going on with this guy.
But once O'Neill learns what he's really dealing with here, suddenly Breach becomes a much more interesting movie. Partially that's because we're done trying to pretend this obvious villain is a good guy and it's partially because Billy Ray, as a filmmaker, seems way more comfortable filming a political thriller rather than filming knock-off Sorkin dialogue exchanges. When it comes time to film suspenseful sequences like one of O'Neill trying to get information from Hanssen's phone before Hanssen gets back to his office, Billy Ray, as well as editor Jeffrey Ford, know how to pace things so that the audience is on pins and needles waiting to see just what happens next.
Another pivotal suspenseful sequence of O'Neill trying to get Hanssen back into his car during a traffic jam so that he doesn't stumble on FBI agents looking over Hanssen's car is similarly well-executed, especially in how it cuts back and forth from a large number of perspectives without undercutting the suspense of the sequence. There's some truly pulsating intriguing to be found in Breach once the clunky first act is done and dealt with and such intrigue extends to well-done subdued sequences, specifically a closing scene of Chris Cooper in a park, that understand how much suspenseful power silence can have when executed properly.
Billy Ray's skillful handling of suspense is tied with Chris Cooper's performance as Robert Hanssen as the best element of Breach, my word is Chris Cooper great here. Not even an actor as great as Cooper can make his characters wonky dialogue in the first third of Breach work, but otherwise, he's gangbusters in this part, particularly in the third act when the more vulnerable side of his character aching for recognition comes bubbling to the surface. It's a fascinatingly damaged part of this usually super composed guy that Cooper just nails beautifully. Honestly, just getting to watch this spectacular Chris Cooper performance is reason enough to slog it through the weak start of the overall pretty good political thriller Breach.
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