So Jackie and I are starting a new tradition. Every Wednesday we’re going to go to a movie, period. Even if there’s nothing out we’re particularly excited about. Every Wednesday we’ll brave the cold, the snow, the mediocrity to support our love of film.

The first in this new series I’ll call The Wednesday Movie was Breach. Breach is a suspense/thriller based on the story of Robert Hanssen, possibly the most accomplished and traitorous spy in US history. Hanssen’s betrayal lasted more than two decades and the damage done is still classified.

Breach stars Chris Cooper as Robert Hanssen and Ryan Phillippe in the role of Eric O’Neill.

OK. With the details out of the way. Breach is an entertaining movie. Billy Ray, who also directed Shatter Glass (a much more intriguing film), does a decent job telling what is a fundamentally compelling story of betrayal.

The problem, and what makes it inferior to Shattered Glass, is the story itself. For some reason, possibly simple lack of information, the main character in the film is Eric O’Neill, the young FBI-agent-wanna-be assigned to case Hanssen, rather than Hanssen. It’s not that O’Neill is boring; only that, compared to Hanssen, his motivation is pretty simple.

O’Neill is torn between doing his duty by playing a rather risky game of cat and mouse with Hanssen and doing what’s best for his family. In any other movie this could be a sufficient plot line, but when juxtaposed with a character like Robert Hanssen, it seems simplistic and trite.

Far more interesting is Hanssen himself, his compulsive catholicism, his sexual deviance, his decision to betray a country he genuinely seems to care about, even if he’s a curmudgeon about it. His motivations are foreign and complex and yet the script does little to explore them. While Cooper does an outstanding job bringing as much complexity as possible to the character, the script gives him very little to work with.

Even worse, the writers seem almost self-conscious of this weakness. One of the final scenes focuses on a conversation between Hanssen and special-agent Dan Plesac (no … not this Dan Plesac) played by Dennis Haysbert about why Hanssen “did it.” In 90 seconds Hanssen rattles off his conflicting motivations. In doing so, the script lays bear its unrealized potential to the audience.

Ultimately Breach is worth seeing. But the disappointment of not getting to know Hanssen better keeps it from being a truly outstanding film.