Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story (2002)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Norman Mailer
Directed by Lawrence Schiller
Starring John Hurt, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Ron Silver, Hilit Pace, Wayne Knight, and Peter Boyle

Features:

• Running audio commentary with director Schiller
  
• Deleted Scenes
  
• Behind-the-scenes featurette
  

Back in the early- and mid-eighties, a family man named Robert Hanssen (Hurt), who just happened to work for the FBI, decided that the best and easiest way to pick up a few bucks was to sell American nuclear secrets to the KGB. Remember them? They were the bad guys during the Cold War. It turns out that he was a rather brilliant man who was passed over at the FBI for several promotions, and his eventual total of six kids put him under the control of his demeaning father, who provided charity. These were some of the factors that eventually caused him to seek out the under-the-table green and help him make ends meet.

And this is what they are trying to pass as off as a gripping tale of "modern day" espionage: a wimp of an FBI agent who was the nerdy guy who always got the wedgies in high school, and finally gets a chance to stick it to "The Man" who was keeping him down. Never mind the fact that he just happened to also be selling out the American Military Industrial Complex at the same time. What gripes me about this story is that they try to convince us that he was the victim here. He was just a guy trying to do what was right for his family, and, oh by the way, he just happened to have a hard-ass father who was always putting him down so his self-esteem wasn't what it should be either. A much more intriguing story would have been showing us the How of what he did rather than the Why. As it stands, it's just more psychobabble gobbledy-gook that shows how horrible life was during the 80s. Not only that, but all of the actors who played the Russian roles seemed to pick up their characters from watching episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Hurt himself is just too self-absorbent and introverted in his character to let us share anything with him.

I think this DVD gives the movie way too much credit. First of all, there is a director's commentary. My first thought upon watching the movie was, "What can the director possibly say about this film that will sound intelligent and thoughtful?" The answer was what I expected: nothing. Although, the DVD enthusiast in me is thankful that they actually put one on the disc. And, again, the only thing that can be said about the deleted scenes is that there weren't enough of them. The Behind-the-scenes featurette moves really slowly and there are too many clips from the movie in between the "behind-the-scenes" stuff. It's really not worth the time to wade through it.

What's a big mystery is why we're presented with a two-hour cut of what was ostensibly a four-hour mini-series on television. Granted, you can tell by my take on the film that I'm not too terribly torn up about missing out--but still, was there that much extraneous stuff that you can tell the same story in just two hours? Apparently so. Also--mystery number two is this: it's listed as full frame on the box, but comes up anamorphic in reality. Weird. My suggestion is to just let this one fade into obscurity.