Breach

Wow, three weeks without a movie in the cinema… that must be some sort of record. I have no explanation, except that the end-of-winter blahs took hold, and I was busy with finals, and there’s seriously NOTHING out that I really am excited about seeing… Luckily, I found some free time last Sunday to pop over to the budget theater and see Breach. I’d definitely recommend this movie – it has a similar feel to The Interpreter, another underrated recent thriller, in that it seems to stick to a cinematic style that went out of vogue a couple decades ago. There are no explosions, no chase scenes (except for one very, very slow-paced car chase), no twists and double-twists and triple-double twists… It’s just a good, solid story about one person in a battle of wits with another person. Chris Cooper is a great actor, and makes what could be a despicable stock character into a weirdly sympathetic man. It’s never clear what any character in the movie really knows about anyone else, and because of this, a lot of people probably thought it was boring and obtuse. I wouldn’t say it was the best movie I’ve seen recently, but this is a good example of the thriller genre slowing down and utilizing actual suspense… I absolutely appreciate that.