Fact-Based

My mother passed away in February 2001. We buried her on the 16th. Two days later a story broke in the news about the arrest of a man who had been a mole in the Intelligence community for over two decades. I vaguely remember something about the incident, but evidently my attention was elsewhere at the time.

Recently I was abruptly reminded of that period in my life in the oddest way: the date struck me as I was watching the dvd of the recently released film, Breach, starring Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe. Laura Linney, Gary Cole, and Dennis Haysbert, among others. The casting alone would have caught my attention. In fact, I do believe that the cast was the reason I initially borrowed the dvd, and I was not misled, as has been the case on other occasions.

I love pretty much anything and everything Chris Cooper does. He has the same kind of quiet presence that David Strathairn has, or perhaps it is simply that both gentlemen never cease to surprise, impress, delight, and challenge my thinking with the roles they play. In this film, Cooper plays a man we, the audience, know to be a consummate liar and national traitor, yet he manages to convey an innate dignity and worthiness that incites admiration while simultaneously managing to emanate a sense of creepiness. As we come to understand the depths of his depravity and treachery, the camera progressively reveals his clay feet. You can see Cooper's character getting increasingly wound up and distrustful, even as he wants desperately to believe that the relatively naive young man in his outer office is simple and trustworthy. I found watching his descent riveting.

Ryan Phillippe, on the other hand, has often left me cold in the past, Crash notwithstanding. This time I found him very effective as the ambitious younger employee bucking for agent status. Ironically, whereas I have generally found him to be too arrogant to be able to contain himself, this time he was almost too capable of subsuming his ambitions in service of the Greater Good. Overall, however, I found his moral dilemma sufficiently engaging for my viewing satisfaction.

Laura Linney can do no wrong, at least on screen. I don't know that it is so much perfect casting as just another superlative performance from an extremely talented and intelligent artist. Whichever is the case, Linney delivers as Phillippe's dedicated superior and supervisor in the sting operation for which the latter is recruited. I particularly like the editorial choice to leave her softer scenes on the cutting room floor, (or at least relegated to the "Alternate" and "Deleted" dvd offerings). Her character makes the most sense as a stern, no-nonsense agent whose dedication to her work is not overwhelmed by overzealousness or undue earnestness, yet who manages to convey all of that in a way that is palatable, or at least free from the more customary gag-inducing reflex.

And who doesn't have the protagonist's reaction when Dennis Haysbert appears on-screen? He doesn't have to be there long to project that ineffable presence. 'Nuff said.

Now, one of the things I really enjoy about today's dvds is the supplementary materials. I was fascinated to see the real Eric O'Neill and to learn that, contrary to the claim at the end of the film that he has been working in the D.C. area as a lawyer, he has, in fact, been shopping the narrative of his adventure around Hollywood for some time now. Phillippe's characterization was surely much more troubled by excessive earnestness than the original on which it is based, yet one might also pass off the bounciness of said original (O'Neill) to the euphoria that must surely accompany the completion at long last of bringing to life on-screen such a life-changing experience.

As I feel my language control to be fairly nonexistent today, I shall stop here... for now...