Breach

For over 20 years, FBI operative Robert Hanssen sold sensitive U.S. secrets to the former Soviet Union, until being found guilty in February 2001 and sentenced for life to solitary confinement in prison. Those are the facts. How the FBI was able to finally trap one of its own and bring him to justice is what this superb new spy saga focuses on. This film is so good, if Hitchcock were still around, this might have been a movie he would have made. Proving life is stranger and more compelling sometimes than fiction, Ryan Phillippe plays an eager young agent-in-training who is chosen to go to work for Hanssen (Chris Cooper) to try to bring him out of his deep undercover alternate existence. What ensues is a fascinating cat-and-mouse game between the two as Phillippe's Eric O'Neill (the real-life agent who served as consultant to the film and collaborated on the script) must use all of his ingenuity to keep Hanssen in the dark about the operation and convince him they are on the same team. In essentially a bout of spy versus spy, this taut film works in the same intelligent manner that cowriter and director Billy Ray's similar journalistic exposé Shattered Glass did a couple of years ago. Thankfully, Breach does not go for the obvious thrills, but remains a spellbinding real-life suspense thriller so incredible that even Hollywood couldn't make it up. This is a guaranteed 100 percent authentic nail-biter! Cooper is sensational in this his career-best performance; and Phillippe matches him every step of the way. Watching them play out this high-stakes game of double-dealing espionage will keep you on the edge of your seat.