Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within

Personal injustice becomes a justification for treason when, after years of unrewarded CIA drudgery, one civil servant embraces infamy over loyalty. With cool precision, this gripping biopic (originally aired on the Showtime cable network) manages to make treachery comprehensible, not as an aberrant evil, but as a byproduct of disintegrating expectations. Until his arrest and conviction in 1994, Aldrich Ames (Tim Hutton) was Chief of Intelligence for the CIA's central Soviet division. After years of watching other company men surpass him, Ames begins to resent the agency and his government's laissez-fair attitude toward espionage. Driven to financial ruin by his am...