Director – Billy Ray
Screenplay – Adam Mazer, William Rotko and Billy Ray.
Plot
Eric O’Neil(Ryan Phillippe) is a computer specialist working for the FBI who aspires to be an agent. He is given a task by his boss, Kate(Laura Linney) to work under senior FBI agent Robert Hanssen(Chris Cooper) and in turn spy him. The reason being, Robert is believed to be a double-agent who is actually selling confidential government documents and secrets to the Russian secret service, KGB. He is also told that Robert is a se sex maniac and is accused of posting lewd pictures and videos on the internet. Eric’s mission is to nail Robert. But the issue is, that when Eric teams up with Robert, he turns out to be a staunch catholic who goes to the church everyday. Doesn’t drink or smoke. He is obsessed with his work and most importantly, he has 25 years of work experience with him.
Critic’s Comments
The movie is a regular spy vs spy kind of movie. So it’s a little difficult to believe that its based on a true life incident. Nevertheless, the movie is decently made. The writers, director and the actors have done their job well. Cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto perfectly captures the dark and gloomy winter of Washington DC and goes well with the tone of the movie. Couple of scenes are well made, for eg, the one in which Ryan Phillippe is trying to access the palm phone of Chris Cooper and also the one which was shot in the traffic jam.
Psst -
1) During a radio interview, the real Eric O’Neal had said that Robert Hanssen had a massive crush on Actress, Catherine Zeta-Jones. In the movie where they show DVDs of Entrapment and The mask of Zorro, those were real life scenarios. Robert would spend time in office watching her movies.
2) Movie filming stared as early as November 2005. Post production took nearly 7-8 months.
3) In real life, Robert’s wife, a strict catholic, Bonnie had caught him writing letters to the Russians and Robert had admitted to his wife that he did that for money. He was paid$30, 000. His wife made him go to confession in their church and the priest who heard the confession told Robert to give the money to charity. Robert said he gave the money to Mother Teresa’s charity . However this was highly speculated.
4) Although he was found guilty to be a spy for the Russians, Robert never met anyone from any Russian Secret Services personally and always corresponded to them in aliases. The only time he met them was once in 1993.
5) The real Robert Hannsen had studied Russian as a second language. This was one of the prime reason why he easily established himself as a double agent with them.
Quotes
1) “Can’t trust a woman in a pants suit. Men wear the pants. The world doesn’t need anymore Hillary Clintons.”
2) “Don’t take anything he says, personally.”
3) “Your name is Clerk and my name is Sir or Boss if you can manage. And if I ever catch you in my office again, you’ll be pissing purple.”
4) “I’m sorry you’re having problems at home. I’d offer you some advice, but it wouldn’t be worth much. I don’t even have a cat.”
5) “There are pallets of new computers in every corridor of this building; I’ll just fill out a req form; Just go get one, those req forms are for bureaucrats.”
6) “Lots of our agents are married. The wives get used to this; I don’t want her to.”
Oops-
1) In one scene Robert talks of mandatory retirement in 2 months time when he turns 58. The time, when that scene has been based, is between December-2000 to January 2001. This would have been an error as the real Robert Hannsen’s date of birth is April, 18, 1944 and at that time he would have been 56 and not 57 and his birthday would also fall in 3 months and not 2 months as depicted.
2) When Robert speaks about KGB spies getting executed by the soviets, the flashback scene shows them getting out of a car with the modern Russian flag instead of the old communist erstwhile USSR flag.