Breaking movie storyline. Based on the 2017 real-life story of the late Brian Brown-Easley, a decorated Marine Corps veteran in dire financial straits resulting from systemic failure. Easley is concerned over the effects of this on his daughter alongside the prospects of homelessness to the point of threatening to blow up a Wells Fargo bank unless he receives payment he is owed from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Breaking is a 2022 American thriller drama film starring John Boyega as a Marine Corps veteran, Brian Brown-Easley, who is in financial trouble and robs a bank. It is written and directed by Abi Damaris Corbin and co-written by Kwame Kwei-Armah, based on the true story of Brown-Easley, detailed in the 2018 Task & Purpose article “They Didn’t Have to Kill Him” by Aaron Gell. The film also stars Nicole Beharie, Selenis Leyva, Connie Britton, Jeffrey Donovan, and Michael Kenneth Williams.
The film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2022, where the cast won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. On February 1, 2022, Bleecker Street acquired the film’s US distribution rights. The film’s title was later changed from 892 to Breaking, and it was set to be released on August 26, 2022.
In the United States and Canada, Breaking was released alongside The Invitation and Three Thousand Years of Longing. The film debuted to $985,921 from 902 theaters in its opening weekend. It went on to gross $2.8 million the box office.
About the Story
At the start of Breaking, former U.S. Marine Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) walks into an Atlanta branch of the Wells Fargo bank and explains to one of the tellers that he has a bomb, before instructing them to call 911. Brian’s demand? For a missing disability payment to be deposited into his bank account by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The missing payment, a seemingly bureaucratic snafu, means that Brian is unable to even afford phone credit to speak to his daughter, and leaves him hours away from being kicked out of the hotel he’s living in.
Now, just about any bank heist/hostage movie of this sort is going to be compared to the crowned king of the genre, Dog Day Afternoon, and while the two cases are indeed very different, Brown-Easley’s scenario is at least a similarly morally ambiguous one.
Sure, he’s putting the remaining teller (Selenis Leyva) and the bank’s manager Estel (Nicole Beharie) through hell, but this is a man left hanging at the end of his rope by a government and a society that wants to thank him for his service and send him swiftly away. The film’s title refers to the missing payment of $892, which while perhaps not a mass of money to many, typifies the wider issue of Brian not being afforded the most basic impression of worth and dignity.
Brian being a Black man obviously layers a major racial component onto the conflict; when he speaks to the 911 dispatcher, one of their first questions quite predictably regards his race. On top of the tension over whether or not Brian will detonate the bomb, audiences also have to fret about the very clear possibility that he will be killed by the police, a fact he’s acutely aware of from the outset. Were Brian white we might consider his immediate fear of being shot by a sniper excessive – and, in fairness, Brian is clearly suffering from debilitating mental health – but such is the lack of regard with which Black lives are held by so many.
Breaking (2022)
Directed by: Abi Damaris Corbin
Starring: John Boyega, Michael Kenneth Williams, Nicole Beharie, Selenis Leyva, Connie Britton, Jeffrey Donovan, Robb Derringer, Olivia Washington, London Covington, Kim D’Armond
Screenplay by: Abi Damaris Corbin, Kwame Kwei-Armah
Production Design by: Christian Snell
Cinematography by: Doug Emmett
Film Editing by: Chris Witt
Set Decoration by: Taylor Jean, Maria Nay
Art Direction by: William J. O’Donnell
Music by: Michael Abels
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violent content, and strong language.
Distributed by: Bleecker Street
Release Date: January 21, 2022 (Sundance), August 26, 2022 (United States)
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