BREACH

Director: Billy Ray (Shatterd Glass, also successful screenwriter)
Starring: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillipe, Laura Linney


I am a Chris Cooper fan. Oh, I can certainly appreciate urbane, intellectual actors, but I'll take a gritty and down-to-earth Chris Cooper type over them any day of the week. Ever since the John Sayles' masterpieces Matewan and (10 years later) LoneStar, I've followed each of his films with interest. Breach is by no means the best film in his repertoire, but he nonetheless gives another very good, if workmanlike, performance in it.

Breach is the film adaptation of the Robert Hanssen events. Hanssen, if you missed the story, was one of the most prominent spies for our enemies in US history. At least he was of those that we eventually found out about and caught. The reality is that the true story of Robert Hanssen is far more interesting than the film, but I suppose that's what the film exists for, to interest us enough to search out the real events.

In the film Hanssen (Cooper) is a lifetime FBI man under suspician for espionage. In a massive sting operation, the FBI chooses to insert a young agent (Phillipe) as his assistant. At first he is asked to simply watch and listen, to report on how Hanssen is behaving. Later as the events ratchet up, he is called to collect information, or to divert him while others do. Each attempt is more dangerous than the last, until eventually Hanssen begins to suspect Phillipe.

What I find interesting about the real Hannsen is certainly mentioned in the film, but it is never really investigated, so to speak, by the screenplay. Hannssen was a devout Republican. He was a devout law and order man. He was a devout Catholic (so much so that he joined Opus Dei). He also happened to sell secrets to the Soviet Union, giving names of Russian double agents that resulted in their deaths. He also happened to be a bit of a sexual pervert, letting friends watch via closed circuit cameras while he had sex with his wife. Was his overt life all a sham? I doubt it. I tend to think he really believed in his law and order, and Catholocism, and conservatism. Just like most hypocrits, I don't think he really understood what it was he actually believed or maybe even what it means to believe, and so then he just believed all the harder to compensate.

In Breach, however, these questions are not really asked or answered. Cooper simply does these things, there isn't a why. He takes Phillipe under his wings to go to daily mass, and he sells secrets to the barbaric and repressive Soviet Union. He complains about his lack of advancement in the macho, gun culture of the FBI, but he despises Hillary Clinton and her pants-wearing female ilk.

Through it all Cooper plays it straight. Yes, he plays this twisted, confused man straight as an arrow. It's an interesting choice, but I think it only partly works. We certainly question (just like with the real Hanssen) how this man can have this duplicitous nature, but there isn't quite enough interest generated for us to *really* care. I find it curious how this man operates, but I'm not sure if it's all that entertaining or intriguing.

In the end this is a good film, but one that will likely be quickly forgotten.

Standouts: Cooper in another good performance. The real case of Robert Hanssen - far more interesting than the movie.
Blowouts: The dry, straight-as-an-arrow direction and production.

Grade: B-

MISS POTTER

Director: Chris Noonan (Babe)
Starring: Rene Zellwegger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson

It's strange, don't you think, how we spend much of our time telling children that the world is full of daffodils and sunshine, but it's rarely reaffirmed for adults. In fact, if by some strange chance an adult were so sunny as a 6-year old, I imagine most people would laugh them right out of their cynical lives. Why do we feel the need to form these sweet foundations in our lives, but then spend the next 60+ years tearing them down brick by brick? Strange indeed.

Miss Potter, however, does not feel this way. It is a short, sweet children's story for adults, briefly reaffirming that childish (and I mean that in a good way) outlook on life. This, I think, is important. I think completely losing touch with those best parts of childhood is a sin, but that most all of us are sinners. It's a shame Miss Potter is not a better movie, because it does have a lot to say, even if what it is saying is simple and sweet.

Miss Potter (Zellwegger) is, of course, Beatrix Potter, the old maid (meaning in her 30s) author of the the Peter Rabbit children stories. She lives with her rich parents, generally unsocial, but with an even richer imagination to keep her company. Eventually she does fall in love, with an equally sunny young publisher (McGregor). They try to convince her parents that their unequal social positions should not be an obstacle to ther being married, and eventually succeed. Then adversity really strikes (I won't ruin it for you by explaining), and the point of the movie is made, that these sweet, simple, perhaps fantastical, outlooks on life can really aid us to deal with the real troubles that adults face.

By Potter's time (1860ish - 1940ish) England already had an exquisitely rich history of children's literature. She was breaking no ground with her enormously successful series of books about rabbits and toads and puddle ducks. In this film at least, what made her unique was her embodiment of the sweet nature that her books projected. She used her imagination and tender disposition to confront the actual struggles of an adult.

The film as a whole is not great, but it is good. It's cute, and enjoyable, although occasionally Zellwegger's scrunched up face often comes across as perhaps a bit too twee for consumption. This is no Babe, Noonan's masterpiece of a children's story, but it would hardly be fair to expect it to be. It's a short, sweet reminder of a simpler, more caring time that probably never existed. But maybe the truth is that that little fantasy of daffodils and sunshine is worth it, even if it's all in our heads. And as long as we can tell the difference between the fantasy and reality, I suppose.

Standouts: Perfectly good work by Zellwegger, McGregor, Noonan and others. A fine film.
Blowouts: It was as short and simple as a Peter Rabbit story. Maybe not quite enough going on to capture the attention of an adult.

Grade: B-