Taglines: Payback is a Mother.
After her father Isaac’s murder, Shaun Russell travels to the house she grew up in with her two children, daughter Jasmine and son Glover. Shaun intends to settle her father’s estate and sell the remotely-located house, which has multiple security features, including a hand-held remote monitor. The security system is off-line at their arrival, but is soon reactivated by Jasmine. Unknown to the family, four criminals – Peter, Sam, Duncan, and their leader Eddie – are already in the house.
Jasmine and Glover are taken hostage while Shaun is outside. Peter chases Shaun into the woods, where she manages to knock him unconscious. She leaves him bound and gagged, and uses the intercom to call the house. Eddie tells her they only came for the safe and the $4 million they believe is inside; Isaac was under investigation and Sam had learned that he liquidated his assets. The crew has only 90 minutes from when they cut the phone line before the security company will contact police, so they want to find it and leave quickly.
Breaking In is a 2018 American thriller film directed by James McTeigue and starring Gabrielle Union, who also produced the film alongside Will Packer, James Lopez, Craig Perry, and Sheila Taylor. The film follows a mother who must protect her children after the mansion of her recently deceased father is invaded by burglars. Principal photography began in July 2017 in Southern California. The film was released in the United States on May 11, 2018. It grossed over $51 million and received mixed reviews, with critics praising Union’s performance but describing the film as having “thinly sketched characters and a slapdash plot.”
Film Review for Breaking In
As “Don’t Mess With A Mother” thrillers go, I much preferred this picture to last year’s Halle-Berry-starring exercise in high-octane cinematic ineptitude, “Kidnap.” Gabrielle Union stars as Shawn, a mom of two, but she’s not the first character we see. That fellow is Isaac, a rich Chicagoan—he’s got a full drawer of expensive wristwatches—who goes out for a run one fine morning and is not only flattened by an SUV but has his head stepped on by the unrepentant driver. This starts the film off with a jolt—the vehicular homicide is shown with slightly more panache than the current de rigueur (and cheap) out-of-nowhere shot.
It’s then we meet Union’s character, the daughter of the dead man, and one who’s not spending much time mourning. She and Isaac were not close, but she’s got to dispose of his estate, including the large house and attendant acreage where she spent her childhood, in Wisconsin. She and her kids, tween Jasmine and younger Glover, are gonna spend the weekend staging the place.
The house has memories for Shawn—as they drive past the stables, she tells her kids that her dad got rid of the horses after she moved out. Young computer whiz (of course!) Grover discovers the house has an elaborate security system and he spends some time amusing himself with a drone. The fun ends when the trio—Shawn’s husband and the father of her kids is stuck at the office—discover they’re not alone in the house.
I’ve heard this movie’s plot described as “Reverse ‘Panic Room’” and that’s nifty and not wholly inaccurate. Waylaid by a member of a four-person team of criminals, Shawn is chased by one who she happens to subdue. But the other three, in the house and in search of a safe, can now lock her out and vouchsafe her cooperation by threatening the kids they’ve taken hostage.
The remainder of the crew is moderately to very nasty. Leader Eddie (Billy Burke, who acts in a style that conjures a Martin Starr character that had been popular and confident in high school) is of the “let’s do what we gotta do” persuasion; blond and jumpy Sam (Levi Maeden) is more of a “this isn’t what I signed up for, let’s get out of here” guy. And finally, there’s Duncan, a “kill everything that breathes” type. Not for nothing, but it’s a little peculiar in a film that empowers a woman of color character to see such a blandly broad Latino psycho stereotype. Richard Cabral doesn’t say “Who you trying to mess with, ese? Can’t you see I’m loco?” but I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if he had.
Once the particulars are established, Eddie lays down a second log line for Shawn: “You are a mother alone at the mercy of strangers. Your greatest weakness is locked in this house with us.” If you’ve seen the poster for this film, or its trailers, you know that such taunts and provocation will only make the climactic line “You broke into the wrong house” that much sweeter.
So, yes, the movie’s predictable, and writer Ryan Engle makes a lot of unforced dialogue errors, as when Eddie, having finally found the safe and managed to open it, beholds its contents and says “So that’s what the American Dream looks like.” There are also plenty of plot holes, which many of my colleagues gleefully dismantled on their way out of the theater. I’m generally not inclined to flex my gray matter in this way, but I was resolved to an improbable ride early on. If Isaac was a criminal (he was) and a court case against him was in progress (it was) his heir would not be disposing of his estate for him. There would be a freezing of the assets and stuff. But you know, whatever. I don’t invest in these movies for a reality check.
And this thriller is not badly directed. James McTeigue has a fleet, efficient visual style that keeps the suspense set pieces percolating. One of his favored devices is a lateral tracking shot, following a character on the move across a hall; the character will stop, and the camera keeps moving, and comes to rest at a position where someone else could conceivably pop out; the shot rests for a couple of beats and nothing happens, then cuts. It’s an effective fake-out strategy. Not effective enough to make any of the movie’s climactic “twists” very surprising, but few directors are genuine miracle workers.
Breaking In (2018)
Directed by: James McTeigue
Starring: Gabrielle Union, Billy Burke, Richard Cabral, Ajiona Alexus, Levi Meaden, Seth Carr, Mark Furze, Christa Miller, Jason George, Damien Leake
Screenplay by: Ryan Engle
Production Design by: Cece Destefano
Cinematography by: Toby Oliver
Film Editing by: Joseph Jett Sally
Makeup Department: Adam Brandy
Set Decoration by: Lisa Alkofer
Art Direction by: Michael Budge
Music by: Johnny Klimek
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, menace, bloody images, sexual references, and brief strong language.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: May 11, 2018
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