Breach

Breach tells the story of Robert Hanssen, the most wanted spy in U.S. history. Hanssen (played incredibly by the wonderful Chris Cooper) has worked at the F.B.I. for nearly twenty-five years, and he has been selling secrets to the Russians for twenty. The U.S. government is on to him, but needs to catch him in the act to make sure the charges stick. Thus, they assign a young man working in the Bureau, Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe) to babysit Hanssen. Sounds like an interesting idea for a movie, right? The most enthralling part is, it actually happened. The film starts with U.S. Attourney General John Ashcroft telling of Hanssen's arrest (so don't worry, I am not giving it away - the film is not about whether he is caught but how he is caught, and more importantly why he did it in the first place). Let the case begin.
This is a simple but wonderful film. It is straighforward, taut, and perfectly executed. Breach is a deep and thought-provoking character study. It is a shame it came out during the absolute worst time of the year for movies (February), because that takes away from its recognition. But at least we had one good film to watch.
Hanssen is a cold, distant, calculating man. He is a very devout Catholic, a family man, and a man who takes his job very seriously. O'Neill has a hard time finding anything wrong, and that is because Hanssen is a master at the game we all tend to play: leading a double life. Breach does a great job of showing us the extent to which people will go to deceive others. It is not that we must merely look underneath the surface to find the real Hanssen. We must look under the next layer, and the next, and the next. Hanssen became incredibly adept at something destructive and deplorable. He even had his wife fooled (in a pretty disturbing way, I might add). We should walk away from the film thinking about how we live two (or three, or four) lives, and how dangerous that is. Sometimes we even deceive ourselves. "Holistic" has become a buzz-word among Christians lately. It means living a life that is not compartmentalized; living for Christ in every aspect of your life all the time. Hanssen is the opposite of a holistic Christian, he has compartmentalized his life, and it has destroyed him and many others.
So why did he do it? Money? Probably not. I won't give it away, but the answer lies among the thorns of another trap we all fall into: pride.
Hanssen was a devout Catholic, as I mentioned earlier. He and his wife are focused, go to mass religiously, pray constantly, and discuss their faith openly. For the first half of the movie I thought we might for once get a positive view of a Christian from Hollywood, but then I remembered who Hanssen was. Was his faith all just a hoax, or did he truly believe? I believe the answer may lie in the final line of the film: "Pray for me." After being caught, Hanssen realizes he has nowhere to turn but to God. He did believe to some extent, though his faith did not turn to action all the time. It reminds me of Paul when he says in Romans 7:15 "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate." He is discussing the sinful nature, and the struggle against the flesh that we all face. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We all go down the path of sin from time to time, and the further you go, the harder it is to get back. Yet 1John talks about faith being action, and if we say we love God but hate our brother, we lie. So did Hanssen really believe? Good question. What should our faith look like?