By Collin Kornfeind

Writer/director Billy Ray is building a solid résumé of true stories of crime in the workplace. His auspicious 2004 debut, Shattered Glass, dealt with Stephen Glass, the New Republic columnist who imagined and published countless stories before being revealed as a fraud. Similarly, in his new film, Breach, a story of traitors, authority figures, and pressures of the workplace mesh in a web of crime and cover-ups.

The film stars Ryan Phillippe as anxious F.B.I. newbie Eric O’Neill. Based on a true story, O’Neill is made a clerk-a flowery bureau term for secretary-for Agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), a master in Russian government, an ideologue, and such a passionate Catholic that he performs the rosary every night and attends church every day.

Assigned by his boss, Agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney), to keep tabs on the retiring Hanssen, O’Neill quickly becomes an admirer of the hard-headed, defiant evangelist to the point that they begin attending church together and sharing Sunday dinner with Hanssen’s extended family.

After some time, O’Neill begins to question his boss’s motives for having him note Hanssen’s every action. Eventually, she tells him that Hanssen has leaked countless secrets of United States intelligence to the Russians in exchange for money and a backwards conviction of patriotism.

The film depicts a fragile power struggle between the leaders and the workers of the F.B.I., both from office to office and agent to agent, as well as what have become Ray’s trademark themes of personable criminals, lies, conflict of interests and obligations, and double-lives of the working elite. A subtly clever element of bureau’s hierarchy of power is in how Hanssen towers over O’Neill as they walk side-by-side down a hallway, causing Phillippe’s character to push against the walls and bump into furniture along the way.

Ray also shows the hostility of O’Neill’s marriage and the secrets he must keep from his wife due to the cagey nature of his job, but rational and intelligent light as opposed to the stock, Hollywood-style aggressive tension between newlyweds trying to make thing work between them.

Spanning almost two hours, Breach consists mainly of witty dialogue, spy-style action, and sharp political insight and criticism. If you can get past the seemingly endless talking heads and feed off the bravura performance by Cooper, Breach works in similar fashion to JFK, scoping American security and controversy in the bowels of government while leaving the audience with a sense of proximal fear and a questioning of human identity at its surface.

GRADE: A-