Either Way, There's Insanity In There

On our way back from vacation we spent a day in Washington, DC, possibly the only market in America where Billy Ray's film Breach is being heavily advertised. It seemed as if radio spots for the movie ran as often on WTOP as traffic and weather on the 8s. (The advertising directors at Washington radio stations must have impressively broad Rolodexes, because companies that would never advertise on the radio anywhere else spend a lot of money advertising on WTOP. The station also played ads for a company that specializes in building ships and helicopters for the Coast Guard, and for the "Homeland Security Expo 2007.")

The movie, in which Chris Cooper plays turncoat spy Robert Hanssen, is getting nice reviews despite having been dumped into the Bermuda Triangle of February.




The radio ads end with one of the clunkiest lines of dialogue I've heard in quite a while. After Laura Linney's character explains the deaths Hanssen may have caused and the damage he's done to American espionage, Cooper says, portentuously:

HANSSEN
Maybe I'm insane. Or maybe I'm insanely brave.

[Pause]

Take your pick.

[Pause]

Either way, there's insanity in there.

Now I'm no screenwriter, but I think I can identify a clear case of overwriting when I hear it. The first part of the line is already a little on-the-nose (though I think I'm remembering it even more lamely than it was written). But if the screenwriters had left it there, probably the line would've worked okay. After a pause, though, they can't resist giving Hanssen a little fillip, a button to make the line seem cooler.

And even that probably would have been fine. But then, after another pause, Hanssen spells out the line for dummies, in case they didn't get it. This dialogue reminds me of nothing so much as a particularly silly Will Ferrell improvisation. In fact, if you read the line in Ferrell's Talladega Nights accent, it becomes quite funny. I can imagine a fourth line, added after an excruciatingly long pause: "Did you get that? Insanity. I unpacked the deft rhetorical trick folded into my initial statement."

Then he would nod.