Breaking In review: A not so thrilling thriller
By Matt Conway
Star Gabrielle Union is stuck with a clumsy and unintentionally hilarious thriller in Breaking In.
Home invasion movies are a dime a dozen, but like most thrillers, they are the ultimate canvas for directors. The simplistic set-up has become timeless, with films like Panic Room and Strangers utilizing it to create memorably tense and haunting experiences.
Tying in with Mother’s Day, Gabrielle Union stars in the latest home invasion thriller Breaking In. The film follows Shaun, a mother of two who visits the estate of her estranged father after his death. The house is suddenly invaded by thieves looking for a secret safe, leaving Shaun to fight for her and family’s life.
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Despite featuring the ingredients for an evolving thriller, Breaking In is a widely unsuccessful attempt at genre filmmaking that will likely leave audiences laughing more than holding their breath.
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Gabrielle Union has proven herself as a capable actress (Top Five and Birth of a Nation), which makes her presence in such a trite movie so distressing. Straddled with a paper-thin character, Union struggles to leave a mark on a role that only allows her to only be distressed or “badass”. Without having the charisma of actors like Liam Neeson and Halle Berry who can make the schlockiest of material convincing, Union and company are stuck giving unconvincing and at times laughably bad performances. The supporting cast especially struggles here, as the thieves played by Billy Burke, Levi Meaden, and Richard Carbral fail to ever intimidate audiences.
It’s hard to give a good performance when the material is beyond repair. Ryan Engle’s script (which after The Commuter and Rampage is his third of the year) blandly recycles the core ingredients of home invasion movies without doing anything new or interesting with them. Often the most interesting aspect of home invasion movies is seeing the cat and mouse game between the intruders and the homeowner, but this film bizarrely has much of that happen off-screen. That’s just laziness, and that shows even more when the few actions that do happen onscreen lack any plausibility. Engle’s biggest weakness, however, is dialogue, with the film’s inauthentic lines often inciting more laughter than fear.
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Director James McTeigue is capable of good work (most notably V for Vendetta), which makes Breaking In’s lackluster direction all the more puzzling. McTeigue fails to ever build much tension, with his shaky camerawork failing to ever excite audiences. The action lacks impact, with quick cuts away and a lack of bloodshed showing the limitation of a PG-13 rating. Much of the execution feels flat and conventional, which is the death mark for any thriller. More distressing to me was just how often McTeigue underplays the strength of his leading lady, with a dozen or so “butt shots” feeling amateur and disrespectful to its star.
I can’t quite say I hated Breaking In, however, as its short running time and a plethora of mistakes did give me some entertainment value. Outside of that, there is very little to recommend about this trite and lifeless thriller.