Breach

This past weekend I went to see Breach, the new movie about FBI agent/Russian spy Robert Hanssen. I liked it-Chris Cooper was very good as Hanssen-he's very opaque and the movie never spells out his thinking and I like a movie that doesn't set it out clearly for you-that sort of dumbing down offends me. Ryan Phillippe was fine as Eric O'Neil-he could have been better, but he did the job. I will say though, that it was hard to get past how Chris Cooper looked-was he wearing lipstick? I know I'm shallow (I refused to see Alexander because Colin Farrell's dye job was so ridiculous that I couldn't get past that either) but it was distracting. One funny thing happened though-as the movie takes place during late 2000-early 2001, there's a scene at FBI headquarters in which workers take down pictures of Bill Clinton and Janet Reno and replace them with George Bush and John Ashcroft...and the audience hissed. Really loudly. It was remarkable and funny-I dislike the President (and his policies) as much as the next person but the last time I heard hissing, I was in college and we were hissing at the bad guy in an old movie-and I started it. I've never heard grown-ups do it and I think it says something about today's world (yes, it was in Georgetown and they were probably all liberals, but these people have good manners and are not prone to hissing). Despie the hissing and the maybe lipstick-wearing it was still a very good movie.