A good movie

I was really eager to check this flick but, to be honest, I actually ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing. First of all,  it was actually a fascinating story with a decent performance by Ryan Philippe and, above all, by Chris Cooper who completely stole the show. This guy is so underrated but fortunately, this time, he really had the opportunity to showcase his talent. Indeed, there were so many layers to his character, it was just spellbinding to watch. However, like I said before, the whole thing didn't completely blow me away though. Indeed, first of all, they were dealing here with a spy whose work streched over two decades but I'm not sure that the last 2 months of his career were really the more interesting part. Imagine a movie dealing with his whole career, I think it would have been much more interesting. Furthermore, there were some scenes with some rather lame dialogues which just didn't work. For example, O'neill (Ryan Phillipe)'s wife kept complaining about the fact that he didn't tell her what was going on with his work. I mean if your wife or husband would be working for the FBI, would you really except them to tell you anything about their work since it concerns some highly sensitive information? Furthermore, during the whole movie, they described O'neill as a very ambitious and talented aspiring agent and the guy eventually took part in the biggest case in the FBI history, displaying his skills in the process and then... he quits?!? I mean, I know in real life, O'neill did quit indeed but they should have taken a different approach because this end was far from being convincing. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was still a fascinating story, Chris Cooper was quite amazing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in seeing a realistic spy movie.

7/10