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BREACH
Studio: Universal
Original Release: 2007
Length: 1 hour 51 mins
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic
Colour/B&W: Colour
Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Commentary
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: June 12, 2007
Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Starring: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney, Dennis Haysbert, Caroline Dhavernas, Gary Cole and Kathleen Quinlan
Screenplay by: Adam Mazer, William Rotko and Billy Ray
Story by: Adam Mazer and William Rotko
Directed by: Billy Ray
Breach, is a truly gripping thriller about the FBI’s arrest of Robert Hanssen, a senior agent who had been sharing intelligence secrets with the Soviets for years. The film also works surprisingly well as a character study by Chris Cooper of Hanssen himself. Director Billy Ray has fashioned an homage of sorts to his favorite films from the 1970s, especially All the President’s Men, and in so doing, he’s actually made a pretty good successor. It doesn’t succeed in everything – some scenes are a bit too stagey, to the point of going a little over the top. But the real pleasure of this film is in the performances and in the quiet, subtle manner that Ray and his cast build their scenes until the film’s conclusion. I absolutely recommend Breach not only because it’s a good DVD (which it certainly is), but because the film really hasn’t been seen – and it deserves our attention.
VIDEO QUALITY: 4/5 :star: :star: :star: :star:Breach is presented in a fine anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer. Tak Fujimoto lit the film primarily in cold colors, which is proper for a film about this subject matter. The warmest lighting I noted in the film tended to be in the church scenes, which is a specific choice that becomes clear as you watch the movie. The picture is a little grainy, but this is an homage to 70s thrillers, which tend to have a grainier, grittier feel. This is a good looking film, with good flesh tones and a good color array, but it is not a slick film by any means, nor is it trying to be one.
AUDIO QUALITY: 4/5 :star: :star: :star: :star:Breach is presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix in both English and French. Most of the sound is in the front channels, but there is some use of directional and surround sound, particularly when the key-coded doors of the FBI offices are triggered. Music fills the home theatre, although in a much quieter manner than in a standard thriller. Here, the music is primarily a piano score, which actually helps ratchet up the tension by its simplicity. There is a little LFE work here, for the occasional gunshots that punctuate some scenes. But this is not a film about gunplay or action. It’s a more subtle film than that – and the sound mix works well at helping that approach.
SPECIAL FEATURES: 4.5/5 :star: :star: :star: :star:
The Breach DVD comes loaded with a fair amount of special features for a one-disc edition. A commentary track is provided, along with 37 minutes of featurettes and almost 18 minutes of deleted scenes or alternate scene versions.
Feature Commentary with Director Billy Ray and former FBI Operative Eric O’Neill Billy Ray talks through the film on this scene-specific commentary as he watches the film with the real operative who helped the FBI catch Hanssen. Most of the talking is done by Ray, who sometimes interrupts O’Neill to compliment the cast or the production crew for their work. When you get past the compliments, the commentary gets more interesting. Ray gives a pretty thorough picture of the making of the film in Toronto, with a brief shoot in DC for key exteriors, and a brief reshoot in Toronto for some scenes that didn’t come out correctly the first time around. O’Neill gives an intimate picture of what it was like working with the real Robert Hanssen, with more details of things like Hanssen’s penchant for walking down a hall with someone and literally walking the other person into a wall. As an added bonus, the DVD includes a subtitle track of this commentary, a feature not normally included on most DVD’s.
Deleted Scenes (12:21 total) – A series of non-anamorphic deleted scenes are included, almost all of which would have come in the first part of the film. Billy Ray and his editor, Jeffrey Ford, contribute an optional commentary track which explains why each scene was removed. The scenes are all interesting in and of themselves, but usually either provide duplicative information that we already know, or provide too much information too soon about Hanssen that we need to learn in a more gradual way.
Alternate Scenes (5:50 total) – Two non-anamorphic early versions of scenes are presented here, again with optional commentary by Billy Ray and Jeffrey Ford. Both scenes were shot during the initial phase of shooting up in Toronto, only to be revised and reshot 6 months later. The versions shown here are the original ones, and Ray explains each time what is wrong with the first pass and why it needed to be rewritten and reshot.
Breaching the Truth (10:51) – This is a brief anamorphic overview of the making of the film, cutting between the usual cast/director interviews, b-roll and clips from the film. There isn’t a whole lot to be learned here, as the crucial information really comes through on the commentary track. However, it is interesting, if a little eerie, to see Ryan Phillipe playing “Eric O’Neill” in a scene while the real O’Neill is watching him from the monitor.
Anatomy of a Character (6:49) – This is a briefer anamorphic look at Chris Cooper’s performance in the film. It essentially plays as a sidebar from the other featurette. However this disc continues a disturbing trend seen before on Because I Said So of positioning product placement on the DVD special features. Where the earlier DVD noted a “Brought to you by” on the menu screen, the Breach disc includes the product placement on the back of the disc packaging as well as the menu. This is a trend that I would prefer to not see in the future.
”The Mole” as originally aired on Dateline 3/05/01 (19:20) – This is a segment from a news program regarding the arrest and history of the real Robert Hanssen. This piece is non-anamorphic, as it originally aired on broadcast television. It’s an interesting feature which goes into a fair amount of detail about Hanssen’s spy tactics and shows how closely Billy Ray has stayed to the true story.
Subtitles are available in English, French and Spanish for the film itself, as well as for the special features. As mentioned, there is also a subtitle track of the commentary. A standard chapter menu is included for quick reference. Finally, a collection of non-anamorphic trailers are played when you first put the disc in the machine, but you can skip them with the menu button.
IN THE END...
Breach is a fine movie that gets a lot of mileage from some intense, layered performances. It’s a genuinely suspenseful film, which is a bit of a feat considering that the viewer already knows the outcome from the start of the film. I recommend it to everyone, and I hope it gets a much wider audience on DVD than it did in theatrical release.
Kevin Koster
June 10, 2007.
