Customer Reviews

Master Spy: Robert Hanssen Story [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is one of the best real-life story adapted movie I've seen. William Hurt is amazing in portraying the enigmatic Hanssen. His performance saved this film from its lack of depth and exciting plots beneath the obvious. Hanssen's motivation for his betrayals to everyone he loves is never elaborated, despite all the internal dialogues and rationalization. Though awkward at socialing and eerie in outlook, highly intelligent Hanssen made his moves with intention and calculation to understand struggling souls like himself under surreal yet intriguing circumstances. Studying his best friend, a strip dancer and intelligence officers from both camps, in depth and in person, must have given him great joy and revelation on himself, a modern-day Faust trying to figure out meanings of his own bewildering existence while finding a way to salvation. Writer Mailer and Director Schiller had obvious done their homework and interviewed key people related to Hanssen which gave certain degree of reality to the scrip. But I still feel somewhat disappointed about the fragmented profile they demonstrated via this movie. Maybe Norman Mailer is just getting old and therefore relies too much on his insights while ignoring the relevant details which would have enriched the story so much more.

Director Lawrence Schiller has a definite style to his films: true-life stories (like the JFK assassination and the O.J. case) with a no-nonsense re-telling of the story as he understands it. Master Spy is in that mold. Robert Phillip Hanssen is presented as an FBI official struggling to have his intellect recognized, and he succumbs to the lure of espionage for the Soviets. For Hanssen, it was partly for money; but more important, he wanted to be the cleverest spy ever. Knowing that others before him (like CIA's Aldrich Hazen Ames) had been caught when Soviet intelligence officers defected to the US or became "agents-in-place," Hanssen decided to never let them know his real identity. (He may have slipped-up and been IDed when he called the KGB from a phone booth they were watching.) He started feeding them fairly low-level stuff, but soon graduated to feeding them everything he could get his hands on. Beyond betraying many Soviets who were working for Western intelligence, he betrayed a secret FBI tunnel under the new Soviet Embassy in Washington.

The film is good in showing Hanssen's actions, but weak in showing his motivations. Another annoying point: One of the most interesting aspects of the case is how he was caught: Knowing the evidence showed there was a mole in US intelligence, the FBI (and later CIA) "leaked" to both current and former KGB/SVR officers that they were willing to pay handsomely for the identity of "Ramon," Hanssen's chosen code name. Sure enough, a post-KGB officer took the bait and turned over the entire KGB file on Ramon. The first gem it contained was a recording of the fatal phone call, and FBI officers realized in horror that it was their colleague. The file also contained a plastic trash bag Ramon had used to package FBI documents years before. Analysis turned up Hanssen's fingerprints on the bag. This whole dramatic sequence was reduced to a few sentences in this film. Hanssen's arrest was also very dramatic, but that, too has a wooden quality in this film.

William Hurt is fair but not great in his portrayal of Hanssen. The always interesting Ron Silver (himself a one-time CIA applicant) is very good as a composite of Hanssen's FBI superiors.

Not a great film, but not bad for anyone who enjoys true spy stories.

This is a good companion DVD to "Breach." Whereas "Breach" focuses on how Hanssen was caught, "Master Spy" shows exactly what Hanssen did and suggests some of the reasons why he may have done it.(Unlike "Breach," "Master Spy" was made with the cooperation of some of Hanssen's family members.)The acting is uniformly good and the story gives viewers some interesting insights into Hanssen's possible motivations.

Enjoyed this movie very much, especially since it was a true

story, Some parts were hard to believe, but very interesting.

Hanssen was perhaps the most destructive traitor in recent years. As a senior FBI official, he had access to closely held secrets and he sold many of them to the Russians. Despite his supposed Roman Catholic faith, he engaged in some very questionable sexual practices as well, inviting a close friend, an army colonel, to view tapes of his sex relations with his wife.
The movie portrays all of this, and how he was eventually exposed, after more than 20 years of selling out his country. Good script, good cast, good acting, good directing.

This film has its faults but is a useful companion piece to "Breach," the far superior production. As other reviewers say, "Master Spy" does seem to dwell on the titillating aspects of the story at the expense of plot, but the movie does have its moments. William Hurt does well as an understated Robert Hanssen in contrast to the angry, paranoid performance of Chris Cooper in "Breach." Nevertheless, Cooper's depth of acting is undoubtedly closer to the real Hanssen and is much more convincing than the laid-back depiction in "Master Spy."

Among other shortcomings, "Master Spy" says nothing about the Eric O'Neill character that is so key in "Breach." Similarly, the Laura Linney character in "Breach" was omitted. One has to wonder if there were technical or security reasons for this or if it was just that the writer and director wanted to focus on other aspects. Whatever the cause, a major dramatic feature was missed in "Master Spy" which is why I can only give the film three stars.

To its credit, "Master Spy" does show that there were financial reasons why Hanssen started spying. Also, from a psychological standpoint, how the role of an abusive father may have distorted the young Robert Hanssen. In any case, I'd recommend that a viewer see "Breach," first, and then supplement the story with "Master Spy." The scene at the end, with William Hurt in solitary confinement, is unforgettable.

Fantastic book, fascinating subject, great author, well-written... 5 stars all the way around. My personal challenge was to find one redeeming trait for Hanssen.
He betrayed his country to the max, was the worst husband to a devoted wife and an embarrassment to the Opus Dei. Reluctantly, I am giving him the benefit (why I don't know) that he could have been a good father. I have met and read about a few scumbags in my time, but I wrack my brain to think of anybody who comes even close to beating him in that department. In ancient times, the proper punishment for this loser would be for him to be publicly stoned. And even that would be too good for him.

MASTER SPY: THE ROBERT HANSSEN STORY( 2003) Directed by Lawrence Schiller. "Script" by Norman Mailer.

Starring William Hurt, Mary-louise Parker, David Strathairn, Ron Silver and Peter Boyle.

Traitor and spy Robert Hanssen was a godsend to the Left and quickly became the Soviet spy they loved to hate. So while Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs etc etc etc have yet to have single movie about them in nearly 60 years, Hanssen gets two in five. The reason is plainly obvious. Hanssen was not a communist nor a liberal but rather some wackjob sexual degenerate suppressed homosexual sociopath who happened to be Catholic.

So while the film is supposedly about his spying, very little of this over two hour film is actually concerned with espionage. In fact, after the first twenty minutes or so, there is very little plot and the film is content to run mostly in place. Rather, exactly like with THE SIEGE OF RUBY RIDGE, this is a sleazy liberal hate screed against anything not liberal. The fraud hack Mailer whose career exists solely because he is an old Sixties era radical leftie uses the Hanssen character as a reverse venom spewer. So dwelling in graphic and extensive detail on Hanssen's degeneracy and basic wackiness with the occasional time out to justify the title, the film then proceeds to attack everything liberals hate.......and they hate so very very much by having Hanssen comment upon it and since he is a sick puppy, the intent is the opposite of what he says.

Therefore we learn that Hanssen likes George Bush, dislikes Al Gore, dislikes Gays in the military etc etc etc etc. No doubt if the film had been made a few years later, Hanssen would say he dislikes socialized medicine and having darkies in the White House. The film's anti-catholicism is virulent and not limited just to Hanssen but also to Parker who plays his wife as some neurotic sex crazed harpy. The KGB is shown as fighting a noble heroic fight against the "war mongers" in Washington aka the Reagan administration and the FBI is portrayed as wasting its time with the Soviet Union since they are "broke" and says they should be looking out for low tech primitive threats thus implying that if only the conservatives had stopped fighting communism, 9/11 would never have happened. The grief over the fall of the Soviet Union is palpable.

While portraying Hanssen as being some evil conservative papist degenerate gay loon, the film never touches upon why, as the film itself shows, evil conservative Hanssen ONLY did his spying and treason whenever there was a conservative in office. He started under Reagan and stopped in 1991 only to start again once Bush was elected.

Not really an espionage film as one learns very little about the espionage. Not really a thriller as Hanssen spies and then gets caught with little effort on anyone's part. Not really a historical film as except for attacks on liberal hate figures and propaganda, there is very little history. Really just a low grade porn movie with lots of T and A and the aesthetic and maturity of PORKY'S or ILSA QUEEN OF THE SS.

William Hurt is very good but again after the 30 minute point, he is on a character treadmill just doing the same character loop over and over.

And of course the movie stupidly leaves one with the question if it is bad to have degenerate gays in the FBI then why is it such a nifty idea to have them in the military? Once again the Left's reflexive tendency to smear anyone they hate as being somehow Gay shoots them in the foot.

Ugly vicious piece of trash.

Recommended for liberals, socialists, communists and teenage boys going through puberty and who want to see some tail.

Shallow plot, focusing more on sexual exploits than on the story.

Poorly directed and produced. Public School student could have writtena better script

This movie is offensive. The acting is terrible, and the movie spends an inordinate amount of time on Hanseen's alleged sexual perversion. The worst part, though, is the emphasis on the fact that Hanssen was supposedly Catholic. This movie is unabashed Catholic bashing. In particular, the movie depicts the Catholic religious movement Opus Dei as a bunch of wackos. Did Dan Brown write the screenplay for this piece of trash?