Breach

In Breach (2007) Robert Hanssen is the complex riddle that the film never quite manages to solve. This is the point, in a sense. The failure to solve the enigma is intentional. Outwardly, Hanssen is a conservative, quiet, long-term agent for the F.B.I. He is a devout Catholic who attends mass daily. He regards himself as a loyal public servant who has not risen in the ranks of the bureau because he has refused to "play the game." Inwardly, he's a different man. He is a purveyor of pornography (he sends films of himself and his wife having sex to unknown people overseas). He frequents strip clubs. And he is a counter intelligence agent for the remnants of the Soviet KGB who over a period of fifteen years has given over to the Russians more state secrets that any other double agent in American history. The information he provides leads to the deaths of American agents, and in time of war could have resulted in wholesale catastrophe for the United States—for instance, Hanssen tells the Russians where the American President, Vice President, cabinet officers, and members of congress would be sheltered in event of nuclear attack.

Hanssen is absolutely duplicitous. In the film we mainly see him as the pious conservative family man. This is partially because we see him through the eyes of a young F.B.I. agent, Eric O'Neill, who is assigned to work as his assistant and to track his actions. We see of Hanssen what he chooses to reveal to his "clerk"—the term Hanssen uses to describe O'Neill, whom Hanssen orders to address him as "boss" and "sir." Hanssen gradually comes to like his young protégé and begins to attempt to attract him into the folds of the Catholic Church. O'Neill never actually was a Catholic, though he attended a Jesuit school. He describes himself as a lapsed Protestant. Hanssen's attempts to draw O'Neill's wife, born in East Germany, into the church and to convince her to accept what he sees as her ordained role as a bearer of children, causes tension in O'Neill's marriage. She never understands what is going on, and her husband has been ordered by his superior not to tell her that he has been assigned to collect information on Hanssen.

To spy on Hanssen, O'Neill has to become like him and to live the kind of double life than Hanssen himself lives. As Hanssen opens up to O'Neill and begins to invite him to his home and to attend mass with him, O'Neill finds himself liking the man. He can't understand why the F.B.I. would suspect him of wrongdoing because he sees no evidence of it in Hanssen's character. He begins to accept Hanssen's view of the F.B.I. as an organization riven with political machinations and rivalries and incompetence. But when he expresses these concerns to his supervisor, a young woman somewhat older than he who readily admits that she has no private life of her own, she tells him the truth and shows him the evidence. This complicates O'Neill's position further, for now he must feign friendship and respect for this man who has betrayed his country and whose life is a complete deception. And he has to lie to his wife about what he is doing.

The relationship of Hanssen and O'Neill is in many ways the heart of Breach. As the film progresses, that relationship becomes increasingly uncomfortable. There are moments when Hanssen seems suspicious of O'Neill (he is suspicious of everyone), especially early in the film. And in one scene, when Hanssen is unable to reach O'Neill (who is meeting with the team that is gathering evidence on Hanssen), he comes to O'Neill's apartment uninvited, with dinner, and upbraids O'Neill for his absence when he does arrive home, almost as if his intention is to make O'Neill's wife suspicious.

Part of the interest of the film lies in the explanations it does and does not offer for Hanssen's character. He is a brilliant man, truly gifted in designing secure databases. The film portrays his sense of himself as an outsider, as someone whose loyalty and contributions have not been recognized, and revenge against the bureau and the government for his failure to rise in the bureaucracy is perhaps one motive for his betrayals. After he is arrested, Hanssen suggests that ego is a reason—implying that he enjoys attending the meetings where his colleagues wonder about the identity of the mole who is giving secrets away to the Russians. He suggests as well that perhaps he turned on his country to demonstrating the vulnerabilities of its security network (this is not convincing). Ultimately, the film doesn't offer an explanation—Hanssen remains inscrutable. Even as he breaks down at the end of the film, convinced that he is about to be caught, unable to resist dropping off a final batch of information, he remains obscure and complex.

Breach does seem to confirm Hanssen's view of the F.B.I. as an agency of politics and internal squabbling. When we first see O'Neill in the film he is bring chastised by two colleagues for circulating a proposal to update computer security. They see the proposal as his attempt to get ahead, to kiss ass and call attention to himself. O'Neill's supervisor (Laura Linney) tells O'Neill he has a reputation for arrogance. Hanssen himself suggests that an F.B.I. investigation into the presence of an inside informer will not take place because agents don't like investigating fellow agents. His accusation that one must "play the game" to get ahead in the F.B.I. may be true. But the film also portrays a group of F.B.I. agents working diligently to gather evidence that will allow Hanssen's arrest and indictment. Despite its own bloated bureaucracy, despite the betrayals of people like Hanssen, the system does its best to do its work. At what point does bureaucratic bloat or internal betrayal overwhelm the system and cause its collapse? The film argues for the system's weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

After the arrest, O'Neill's supervisor tells him that he will be promoted for his good work. O'Neill announces that he is resigning. Although his reason is not explicitly stated, we know that he does not want to work in a job that compels him to lie and deceive, even if he is doing so in the best interests of his country. The film portrays this decision, I think, as an admirable one, though it does not fully explore the consequences of this position: if someone doesn't take the necessary steps to stop people like Hanssen, the government will be compromised.

Chris Cooper is excellent as O'Neill—this is the best, most nuanced performance I've seen him give. Laura Linney is effective as Eric O'Neill's supervisor.

Breach does not make Hanssen out to be a villain—he's not demonized or stereotyped in a simple way—but it does not deny the seriousness of his treasonous betrayals. Because the film allows us to see past issues of national security and ideology to the complex contradictions of human character, in this case an extreme example of human character, it is successful.

Breach is based on the true story of Hanssen's career and of his arrest in 2001. The former F.B.I. agent O'Neill whose work helped bring about the arrest served as an advisor to the film.