A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

HAVE YOU BEEN IN MY BRIEFCASE? One of the first things I blogged about many moons ago was Billy Ray's film Shattered Glass (Adam is a fan as well). It's not surprising then that I made time to see his new film, Breach, this weekend. The good and bad things about the films are almost exactly the same. Lots of great "how they caught the guy, and how the guy managed to avoid detection for so long" material, solid performances all around (though Christensen and Phillippe are both the weak links in their films' ensembles), but little or no "why?" Sure, Robert Hanssen gets a speech while in custody enumerating several reasons he might have done what he did, but the movie doesn't explain or take a stance. The other weakness specific to Breach is that Glass was cast almost entirely with unknowns who could surprise us by delivering a good performance, especially folks like Hank Azaria and Steve Zahn, known primarily for comic work. In contrast, Breach is filled with actors like Chris Cooper, Laura Linney, and Dennis Haysbert--from whom excellence is expected, not a surprise. The most misunderstood performance in the film, though, comes from Caroline Dhavernas, playing Phillippe's shy East German wife--those not familiar with her work on Wonderfalls may see it just as bad acting rather than recognizing that she's calculated just how tightly wound her character is. Well worth seeing, and a far better spy flick than the interminable Good Shepherd was.