Breach (2007)

The most dangerous person in the room can be the one everyone trusts completely. Can a spy story still thrill when you already know the traitor has been caught? When the film is as good as Billy Ray's "Breach," the answer is a resounding yes. This true story is genuinely stranger than fiction. FBI agent Robert Hanssen spent more than 20 years selling government secrets to the Soviets and later the Russians, making him one of the most damaging traitors in American history. A devout Catholic and member of Opus Dei who harbored secret sexual obsessions, he was so trusted that the bureau once assigned him to help hunt for the mole - who was, in fact, Hanssen himself. He was ultimately brought down in part by Eric O'Neill, a 26-year-old agent-in-training who worked alongside him for just two months. Chris Cooper, an Oscar winner for "Adaptation," is brilliant as Hanssen, a dour, icy, ultraconservative enigma whose conversations feel more like interrogations. Ryan Phillippe is equally strong as O'Neill, who is at first kept in the dark by his supervisor (Laura Linney). Believing he's only documenting his boss' sexual misconduct, O'Neill finds himself in a deep moral bind, reluctantly admiring Hanssen even as the older man's creepy intrusions, and the FBI's strict secrecy rules, strain his marriage. Ray, whose previous film, "Shattered Glass," was also based on a true story, and co-writers Adam Mazer and William Rotko sustain remarkable tension all the way to the ending revealed in the opening moments: Hanssen's arrest in February 2001. An agonizing sequence in which O'Neill must stall Hanssen while technicians search his car is just one example. Just as impressive, the film keeps its focus on the personal relationships at its heart, and O'Neill's bonds with Hanssen, his father (Bruce Davison) and his wife (Caroline Dhavernas) all ring true. Kathleen Quinlan co-stars as Hanssen's devoted wife. At once fascinating and horrifying, it's one of the best films of 2007.