Breach (Widescreen Edition)
by Billy Ray
List Price:
Our Price: $11.49
You Save: $3.49 (23%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $1.26 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Cole, Laura Linney, Ryan PhillippeDirector: Billy Ray
Brand: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.
Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto
Composer: Mychael Danna
Editor: Jeffrey Ford
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); French (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-12
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Breach (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: Motive remains the mystery
Summary: 4 Stars
Well this is certainly an excellent film. The script is smart and requires constant attention. The acting is superb. The narrative and editing are fast paced and yet the viewer does not get lost. The story is compelling, complex, and frightening. Even with all these positive qualities, the film leaves the viewer with one unresolved issue, and that is to fully understand the motives behind FBI agent Robert Hanssen's 20 years of spying for the Soviet Union while nestled in the center of the FBI.
Chris Cooper is always superb. He is one of the finest actors in films. He is absolute great in this film. The other actors are excellent also but Cooper's performance was over and beyond excellent. He fully captured the psychological construction of a highly conflicted and brilliant man. Laura Linney is cool and professional in her search for the evidence against Hanssen. Ryan Phillippe, who plays young FBI clerk Eric O'Neill, does not often show emotion on his face or in his tone, but in some ways this allows him to play the 'everyman' type of guy with whom most guys would identify.
There is considerable wisdom in not over explaining, of allowing conjecture, of leaving lose ends for the audience to tie together. This is the case in this film where motive remains only partly revealed, partially exposed, and never resolved or packaged for the viewer.
Robert Hanssen was a conservative, Opus Dei Catholic, who engaged in sexual perversions. This fact alone allows us to see that the man contains conflicting emotional forces that are not resolved. But why would he become a traitor for 20 years, resulting in the deaths of many agents and loss of national security? There is a hint that he wished to show the US how vulnerable we really are. But why did it go on for 20 years? There is also considerable resentment and hostility toward authority and FBI management shown by Agent Hanssen. Was he so anti-authoritarian that he secretly wished to undermine the FBI leadership? There is resentment and sarcasm about federal policies and procedures, but every federal employee is subject to these procedures and endures them to get their work done. Was it that FBI leadership failed to recognize how smart he was, to offer him praise and recognition for his analytical abilities? This seems to me to be one of the best partial explanations. He was indeed a smart man, but even the most brilliant man can not expect constant support and praise from supervisors and leaders. The lack of constant praise, recognition, and verbal reinforcement is punishment for some personalities without a centered stable core self concept. Hanssen had strict rules for himself and family but strict rules maintained obsessively is actually about control of impulses and negative feelings more so than about organizational skills and high morality. The person with a strong sense of self is able to give themselves recognition and reward when they feel their advice has been ignored by leadership or they feel they are not appreciated. A person with a strong sense of self has the ability to empathize and realize there are lots of smart folks in federal jobs and no one gets constantly reinforced. Instead a healthy attitude is that bright employees have to take turns in the spotlight. Hanssen was vulnerable because he lacked this strong center. He was smart and organized but he was far from self-actualized, thus making him very vulnerable under pressure.
Summary of Breach (Widescreen Edition)
Is a mystery really mysterious when the end isn't a secret? Is espionage still thrilling when you know beforehand that the cloak has been pulled back and the dagger revealed? If it's a film as good as Breach, the answer is a resounding yes. Here is a true story that's genuinely stranger than fiction: FBI agent Robert Hanssen spent over 20 years selling government secrets to the Russians, making him the most egregious traitor in U.S. history. He was an Opus Dei Catholic and a devout churchgoer who was also a sexual deviant, a straitlaced company man so trusted by his employers that they once appointed him to lead an investigation designed to reveal who the spy was--when in fact it was Hanssen himself. And in the end, he was brought down in part by 26-year-old Eric O'Neill, an agent-in-training who worked with him for just two months. Chris Cooper, a 2003 supporting actor Oscar winner for Adaptation, is brilliant in the lead role, playing Hanssen as a dour, cold, ultraconservative cipher (women in pantsuits are just one of his peeves) whose conversations more closely resemble interrogations. Ryan Phillippe is also excellent as O'Neill, who's initially kept in the dark by the superior (Laura Linney) who assigned him to help expose Hanssen's treachery; thinking he's been brought in only to gather evidence about his boss' sexual transgressions, O'Neill finds himself caught in a profound moral conundrum, grudgingly admiring Hanssen even as his own marriage is severely tested by the older man's creepy and hypocritical intrusion into their lives, not to mention the FBI's strict rules against discussing the case.Director Billy Ray (whose previous feature was also a true story: Shattered Glass, about the young writer who fabricated stories for The New Republic) and co-screenwriters Adam Mazer and William Rotko do an extraordinary job of maintaining the tension as the story leads to the conclusion that's been revealed in the first few frames (i.e., Hanssen's arrest in February 2001); the exquisite torture of O'Neill's having to keep Hanssen distracted while Bureau technicians search the latter's car is but one example. Moreover, notwithstanding the plot developments, the filmmakers manage to keep their focus on the personal interactions that are the film's key element: the relationships that O'Neill maintains with Hanssen, his father (a cameo by Bruce Davison), his wife (Caroline Dhavernas), and others are entirely credible. At once fascinating and horrifying, Breach is inarguably one of the best films of 2007. --Sam Graham
Inspired by true events Breach is a gripping and intense thriller that takes you deep inside the halls of the FBI for a top-secret investigation to uncover the greatest breach in the history of US intelligence. Featuring powerful performances by Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe nothing is as it seems in this suspenseful action packed film that will keep you riveted until the climactic ending.Runtime: 111 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS Rating: PG - 13 UPC: 025193227621 Manufacturer No: 61032276
Drama DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in Best In Film 2007
PersepolisSony; Release date: 2008-06-24; DVD
Best price: $14.98
Price in other shops:
There Will Be BloodLEWIS,DANIEL DAY; Release date: 2008-04-08; DVD
Best price: $7.39
Price in other shops:
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetPARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen)UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.; Release date: 2008-04-22; DVD
Best price: $7.24
Price in other shops:
The Kite RunnerPARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2008-03-25; DVD
Best price: $11.69
Price in other shops:
Grace Is GoneWELLSPRING/GENIUS; Release date: 2008-05-27; DVD
Best price: $11.49
Price in other shops:
Juno (Single-Disc Edition)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-04-15; DVD
Best price: $9.59
Price in other shops:
The Diving Bell and the ButterflyBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2008-04-29; DVD
Best price: $17.25
Price in other shops:
The SavagesTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-04-22; DVD
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops:
The MistWELLSPRING/GENIUS; Release date: 2008-03-25; DVD
Best price: $10.98
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
The Good Shepherd (Widescreen Edition)UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.; Release date: 2007-04-03; DVD
Best price: $5.55
Price in other shops:
NextRelease date: 2007-09-25; DVD
Best price: $9.07
Price in other shops:
The Bourne SupremacyRelease date: 2008-03-25; Video Download; Movie
Best price: $3.99
VacancySony; Release date: 2007-08-14; DVD
Best price: $5.78
Price in other shops:
The Astronaut FarmerWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-07-10; DVD
Best price: $6.89
Price in other shops:
Perfect Stranger (Widescreen Edition)Sony; Release date: 2007-08-21; DVD
Best price: $3.48
Price in other shops:
Fracture (Widescreen Edition)HOPKINS,ANTHONY; Release date: 2007-08-14; DVD
Best price: $5.85
Price in other shops:
Shooter (Full Screen Edition)PARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2007-06-26; DVD
Best price: $9.52
Price in other shops:
The ContractFIRST LOOK HOME ENTERTAINMENT; Release date: 2007-07-24; DVD
Best price: $6.45
Price in other shops:
Zodiac - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)PARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2008-01-08; DVD
Best price: $18.75
Price in other shops: