Synopsis

In 2001, ambitious FBI surveillance specialist Eric O'Neill is assigned as assistant to veteran agent Robert Hanssen. What begins as a supposedly routine inquiry into Hanssen's personal misconduct becomes a covert counterintelligence operation: O'Neill must gain the older man's trust while investigators search for proof that he has been selling secrets to Russia. Their uneasy relationship drives this fact-based thriller.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is based on the real FBI espionage case involving Robert Hanssen and Eric O'Neill, whose role remained classified when several early books about Hanssen were published.

• O'Neill collaborated directly with the production and spent time in Toronto helping Chris Cooper study and imitate Hanssen's mannerisms.

• The opening incorporates footage from Attorney General John Ashcroft's press conference announcing Hanssen's arrest. The date shown in the theatrical version was off by one day; the mistake was corrected for the DVD release.

• The FBI hallway posters showing captured spies and their crimes were based on real displays used in secure government facilities. After Hanssen's arrest, his photograph was added to such displays.

• The scrolling computer code seen near the beginning represents a Linux procedure for mounting networked data sources, including Unix, Windows, and Novell systems.

• Principal photography took place in Toronto, Washington, D.C., Arlington, and Vienna, Virginia, from November 16, 2005, through February 2006.

• Made for approximately $23 million, the film earned about $41 million worldwide and received generally favorable reviews, including a 74 Metascore.