Which film featured American actor Sean Penn portraying events involving the sale of U.S. security secrets?

Sean Penn is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He has won two Academy Awards for his role in the mystery drama ‘Mystic River’ (2003) and the biopic ‘Milk’ (2008). He has been active as an actor since 1974.

‘The Falcon and the Snowman’ is a 1985 American spy drama film based on the 1979 book ‘The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage’ by Robert Lindsey (born 1935), a journalist and author of true crime books.

The film tells the story of two young American men, Christopher Boyce (played by Timothy Dalton, born 1960) and Andrew Daulton (played by Sean Penn, born 1960), who sold United States security secrets to the Soviet Union.

The film unfolds over 131 minutes portraying civil defense contractor Boyce’s disillusionment with the U.S. government dealing with the Central Intelligence Agency’s plan to depose the Prime Minister of Australia. Frustrated by this duplicity, Boyce decides to repay his government by passing classified secrets to the Soviets.

Daulton is a drug addict and minor cocaine smuggler, nicknamed “The Snowman”. He agrees to contact the Soviet’s KGB’s (security agency) agents in Mexico on Boyce’s behalf. He is motivated by an opportunity to make money with plans to settle in Costa Rica, a nation that at that time had no extradition treaty with the U.S.

The two are eventually discovered and arrested. As the film ends, Lee and Boyce are seen being escorted to prison.