Ryan Phillippe, left, portrays FBI trainee Eric O'Neill in 'Breach.' Chris Cooper, right, plays traitor Robert Hanssen.

By Barry Paris, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Based on the true story of the greatest security debacle in U.S. history, "Breach" is serious business -- and a very fine film. Its narrative is real and riveting, yet retro-reminiscent (whether it wants to be or not) of Mad magazine's old Antonio Prohias' "Spy vs. Spy" comic strip.

In this intra-agency chess match, FBI neophyte Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe) contends with his veteran boss, Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper). It's spy against spy, locked in a struggle to penetrate and prove the treasonous performance of duties.

		'Breach' Starring: Chris Cooper, above, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney. Director: Billy Ray. Rating: PG-13 for violence, sexual content and language. Web site: www.breachmovie.net/ Related article Family Film Guide

Hanssen, a devout Catholic family man, the bureau's counterintelligence ace of long-standing, is now under suspicion. Agent-in-training O'Neill, a 26-year-old computer geek and undercover surveillance specialist, is recruited to serve as Hanssen's clerk in order to gather evidence on him. O'Neill's handler-superior (Laura Linney) tells him Hanssen is a sexual deviant with a penchant for porn, potentially a great embarrassment to the bureau. But as Eric digs -- or is dragged -- deeper into his quarry's private and professional life, the brilliant, world-weary Hanssen becomes his mentor, with family values galore.

Why would the bureau be investing so much time and energy into stalking such a straight arrow?

Because Hanssen has systematically sold secrets to the enemy (including the location of the president in event of attack) for 22 years. Armed with the full story, O'Neill resumes his surveillance with new zeal and uses Hanssen's growing trust to lure the mole into a mistake. Within a tight two-month span, our lowly I.T. clerk is pitted against the most notorious traitor in FBI history. In this high-stakes character study, O'Neill must figure out the enigmatic Hanssen, who boasts of the ability to "read" people, before Hanssen figures him out first.

"Breach" is a near-perfect spy movie. Credit the compelling characters to screenwriters Adam Mazer and William Rotko, who stick pretty close to the facts (except that the real O'Neill knew the real Hanssen's crimes from the start). Director Billy Ray handles his material and its pacing like an old pro, although he has only one previous credit, "Shattered Glass" (2003), a different if related real-life deception story about a New Republic writer who fabricated his stories.

More facile directors would have souped up "Breach" with pyrotechnics and ersatz melodrama, rather than trust the honest tension of believable situations to deliver the goods, such as one of several exciting two-way betrayal sequences in which O'Neill steals Hanssen's Palm Pilot with precious few minutes to download its contents.

None of that, or the movie, would necessarily be memorable were it not for Cooper, one of the finest actors of our day -- Oscar winner as the orchid man in "Adaptation," equally fine in "Capote," "Seabiscuit" and "American Beauty." Here, he totally inhabits the chillingly complex Hanssen, who attends Mass daily even as he covertly sends patriots to their deaths. Cooper's Hanssen is an intimidating, unpredictable figure with his terrifying cold stare, subtle tics and agonizing lag time between the asking and answering of even the simplest "How are you?" kind of question. He gets progressively creepier, a master of keeping everybody's nerves on edge.

Young Phillippe, on the other hand, was dismissed by some as just another pretty (one-dimensional) face in "Crash" and "Flags of Our Fathers," but I think he has been -- in the immortal word of George W. Bush -- "misunderestimated." Phillippe's minimalist blend of sly determination and naivete makes him a fine foil to Cooper, in which task he is nicely supported by laconic Linney (Oscar-nominated for "Kinsey"), who nails her key role of cynical-yet-still-vaguely-idealistic career agent.

Director Ray and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto employ a claustrophobic mise-en-scene here that no fictional spy movie would abide: flat fluorescent-lit FBI corridors, Hanssen's spartan office (Ashcroft's picture on one wall, a crucifix on the other), O'Neill's dull apartment, and an occasional Washington street. This is about back-to-the-roots suspense instead of F/X, refreshingly devoid of cheap thrills.

They couldn't resist a few cliches: can't-discuss-work-with-his-lovely-wife marital issues, for example. But overall, this "Breach" is about as good as the spy genre gets. How much more powerful is the low-key intensity of truth vs. the high-tech fiery frenzy of fiction?

And how quickly we forget it. Hanssen was arrested in February 2001, charged with selling America's highest government secrets to the Soviet Union. But his rise and downfall was dwarfed and forgotten seven months later, on Sept. 11 of that grim year.