Nuance, acting aid tension in ‘Breach’

In theaters

BREACH, directed by Billy Ray, written by Adam Mazer, William Rotko and Ray, 110 minutes, rated PG-13.

It’s spy vs. spy in the new thriller “Breach,” though only one spy knows that something truly is afoot. The other is left to suspect, with the film’s formidable tension mounting from his growing suspicion.

Directed by Billy Ray from a script he co-wrote with Adam Mazer and William Rotko, the film generates a quiet grip, gently tightening its plot until the noose of intrigue it weaves becomes impressively unshakable. That’s no small feat, particularly since the movie’s outcome is so well known going into it.

Set on the cusp of 2001, the film stars Ryan Phillippe as Eric O’Neill, the real-life surveillance operative who was instrumental in bringing down Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), the senior FBI counterintelligence agent who sold security secrets to the former Soviet Union and then to Russia over the course of two decades.

For his trouble, Hanssen made more than $1 million in cash and diamonds, while the United States, facing its biggest and most embarrassing security breach ever, lost untold billions at the hands of Hanssen’s deceit.

The movie is as much about how Hanssen was brought down as it is about the man himself, with Cooper nailing the role so convincingly, he likely would have been up for an Academy Award on Sunday night had the film been released at the end of 2006. His chance for Oscar’s attention might come next year, though working against him is the Academy’s short memory when it comes to recognizing those films released early in the year.

Still, what a performance. What Cooper gets exactly right is that he doesn’t approach Hanssen as if he’s a mere monster – that would have been too easy, with nuance lost. Instead, he understands that Hanssen was a hive of contradictions and thus he shades the character with all we’ve come to know about him. For instance, Hanssen was a staunch conservative and a devout Roman Catholic, attending Mass every day (and expecting the same from those close to him), and yet he also was a porn addict, freely distributing videos of him having sex with his clueless wife (Kathleen Quinlan).

With deceit at all levels seeping from his pores, it’s no wonder Hanssen was starting to come undone when into his life came O’Neill as his new clerk. O’Neill was put into that role by FBI agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney), who was one of 500 agents working to build an airtight case against Hanssen.

O’Neill’s youth and his lapsed Catholic background proved the perfect hooks to catch Hanssen off guard, though hardly without its share of problems for O’Neill. Going into the job, he was told he was there only to keep tabs on a sexual deviant. Turns out that the FBI misled him and that the case was more far-reaching than that.

What the talented Phillippe mines from this is his best, most convincing role to date, one that joins Cooper’s in that he rises above the script’s lapses into stock genre convention to focus on what really matters – the psychological complexities of O’Neill and Hanssen’s unusual relationship.

Grade: B+

On DVD

FLUSHED AWAY, directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies, 85 minutes, rated PG.

The computer-animated movie “Flushed Away” comes from DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations, the latter of which is the British outfit behind the Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit series.

Those films were created using stop-motion clay animation, a look and feel “Flushed” strives to capture through computer animation. For the most part, they succeed, though there is a smoothness to the production that does steal away at least some of the hands-on charm for which Aardman is known.

The movie follows the highs and lows of the high-brow pet mouse Roddy (Hugh Jackman), who is left to his own devices at his owners’ Kensington estate when the family goes away for the weekend. For a time, all is well and good for Roddy until the intrusive, abrasive rat Sid (Shane Richie) enters the picture.

Belched loose from the plumbing, Sid turns vicious when he flushes Roddy out of his life so he can take over the estate and at last live the good life. For Roddy, the life he finds underground is actually a city teeming with sauce and color, particularly thanks to some salty, torch-song-singing slugs, who steal a good part of the show.

Below ground, Roddy also meets cute Rita (Kate Winslet), a slinky rat who proves Roddy’s only hope to help him find his way back to the life he knows at street level, which she agrees to do, though naturally there are complications, starting with the villainous Toad (Ian McKellen, terrific).

Throughout the movie, you can feel the tug and pull of each studio, with the more cliched, dramatic moments coming from DreamWorks, one suspects, while Aardman shoehorns into the story the sort of quietly revealing character moments we’ve come to expect from them. For audiences, the good news is that the two sensibilities mostly assist the movie, allowing it to achieve a controlled sense of arcane looseness on its way to becoming one of last year’s better animated efforts.

Grade: B+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays and Fridays in Lifestyle, weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.