(spoiler free)
There’s quite a simple premise to ‘Breaking In’, the latest from director James McTeigue. Mum, young son and daughter arrive at recently deceased, disgraced Grandpa’s house to sort things out after his death. They find four thugs have targeted his home, looking for his ill gotten gains. When the kids are apprehended, Mum has to fight to survive and free her children.
As a fan of McTeigue, I was looking forward to a tense and well constructed thriller, that I imagined would have shades of ‘Panic Room’ and ‘Straw Dogs’. However, I’m afraid that what we really get is a watered down version of a home invasion flick, with all the suspense and threat of early ‘Scooby Doo’ cartoons. There are a lot of problems with the whole production, from the ridiculous villains of the piece, to the go nowhere story telling. Literally from the first ten minutes, I find it hard to imagine anyone not knowing exactly where the film was leading, and sure enough there are no plot twists, or even imaginative directorial flourishes that will challenge or engage an audience.
The Mum, played by Gabrielle Union, who was also a producer on this film, veers from hard boiled defender to nervous middle aged woman, quite dramatically from scene to scene. I know they may have been trying to suggest this was a desperate woman pushed to her limits, but consistency in character is something that should be in place as the cameras start to roll, and not a decision that should be made about a protagonist depending on what scene or lines she has to deliver. Speaking of delivering lines, there are moments of such buffoonery from the villains that audience members laughed out loud at the most inappropriate moments. This is not a film with any deliberate laughs, yet at my screening it was getting more reaction than ‘I Feel Pretty’ in the theatre next door.
Union makes her way around the house like a pound shop Spider-Woman, clinging to the sides of stair cases and creeping along rooftops doing whatever a spider can. Often she is bare foot, but follow up scenes show her in boots, before taking them off again when back inside. Such continuity accidents are unforgivable in a film set in one house and with a cast of seven people. Billy Burke, who plays lead bad guy, Eddie, has one of those Hollywood guns that never runs out of bullets, till it’s dramatically ready to do so of course. Speaking of Burke, he plays the part of the head of the gang like a bored Bond villain that’s down on his luck. His trite delivery, and insistence of telling Union that she is “an impressive woman” is just so tonally wrong that you start to cringe whenever he opens his mouth.
There’s just no substance to this film, which is a shame because the right script would have saved it. We have no doubt who is walking away from this screenplay, there was nothing brave or original here and that’s a shame as it had promise. However, the stakes are low, the cliches come thick and fast, the script can’t find any heart or conviction for the players, we know how the final reel will play out and the absolutely ridiculous bad guys make this canon fodder for Cinema Sins a month down the line. This is a misfire more suited to Netflix on a wet Sunday afternoon, save your money or go and see ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ again.
Written by Louie Fecou
Rating – 4/10
Question: What’s your favourite trashy thriller?
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