How do you make the story of an FBI agent’s betrayal of his country dull as hell? I don’t know, but it happened with the TV miniseries Master Spy, starring William Hurt as real life spy Robert Hanssen.
Hollywood is going to try to wash that taste out of my mouth with the film Breach, which will star the almost always great Chris Cooper as the man who sold out his country to the Soviets for a million dollars and change. This film, though, will have elements that seem fictional to me (although I am relying on the internet for this info and could yet be wrong) – specifically adding a young FBI agent who worked under Hanssen and then began to wonder if he was crooked. Ryan Phillipe will play that role.
Hanssen’s pretty interesting anyway, if his story is told right. I mean, he used to post dirty stories about his wife on newsgroups back in the day. That’s almost as fascinating as 15 years spent spying for the Soviets.
In the end Hanssen was captured and is serving a life sentence. He’s actually lucky he got busted when he did, just before 9/11 – there’s a good chance that after the attack on America he would never have been able to work out a deal and might have ended up on death row, and I ain’t talking Suge Knight here.
Breach is being directed by Billy Ray, but as far as I can tell he doesn’t have an achey breaky heart. Billy Ray is the guy who directed the good but minor Shattered Glass, and as far as I know is no relation to Nicholas Ray, who directed Rebel Without a Cause.