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Your "quibbles" are...

Posted by afilado on August 20, 2007 at 11:31:42:
are at the heart of the answer you're looking for. They are not insignicant.

I would say that Chris Cooper's large talents are not matched by charisma or gravitas which were embodied by a Richard Burton, to use your comparison example. Sorry to say it, but Cooper could not alone carry the movie to the box office.

I think that Cooper is consistently excellent in his work but really is more notable when he is a "co-star" or is able to share the screen with an equal or better. He is one of the finest but pretty thoroughly a character actor. He was far more compelling in Adaptation or American Beauty. And, magnetic is not a word I'd ever use to describe him.

Another factor is that Hanson, as portrayed by Cooper - probably accurately - was exceedingly quiet in exercising his personal power. No doubt necessarily so given his story of secrecy and guile.

Your comments about Phillipe and Linney are spot-on and, as I say, a part of the overall problem

The movie is so well done it's almost technical in it's storytelling. Not slick, just ultimately unengaging. It lacks sufficient soul, or maybe more aptly it is unable, paradoxically, to overcome the understated power of the lead performance on which the whole affair depends.

My heart beats faster just thinking of "The Spy..." than at any time during my watching of Breach. If a film doesn't engage me on a visceral level, an emotional level, no matter how intelligent it is it falls short.

This is a "failure" of storytelling. The director must bear that responsibility, his name notwithstanding..

Wonder how the movie did in markets outside the US?