A big holiday’s approaching, and you’ve not gotten a thing for Mom? Instead of waiting in line for Brunch or picking through the last few roses at the flower shop, how about a movie? The studios are way ahead of you. Opening this weekend are two distinctly different motherhood movies on the screens not filled with that superhero smack-down. Competing for your cash are the collegiate comedy LIFE OF THE PARTY with Melissa McCarthy getting her degree alongside her daughter, and this action thriller with Gabrielle Union going to extreme lengths to protect her kids from a quartet of creeps. Ms. Union’s character is a new addition to the long list of tough movie moms from Greer Garson’s Oscar-winning turn as MRS. MINIVER to Sally Field’s seeker of revenge in EYE FOR AN EYE, and finally the very similar defender played by Jodie Foster in PANIC ROOM . Let’s see how Union stacks up to those “mama grizzlies” as she tries to save her cubs from thugs intent on BREAKING IN.
The film’s pre-title opening involves a fatal accident that befalls a middle-aged jogger, Isaac (Damkian Leake), on an affluent Chicago street corner (we soon learn that there’s nothing accidental about his death). Fade in on his daughter Shaun (Union) as she drives her kids, pre-teen son Glover (Seth Carr) and teenage daughter Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus) to her father’s country estate deep in the woods of Michigan. Shaun’s hubby Justin is swamped with work and hopes to join them soon, as she gets the place ready to sell (Shaun’s estranged from her papa, so the place has no sentimental value to her). The kids are impressed by the sophisticated security system of the place (lots of monitors, timed steel shutters on the windows, and a state-of-the-art defence control station). A little odd, but nothing too weird thinks Shaun. But then she’s attacked by a stranger while walking out of the garage. She momentarily escapes his clutches and races back to the house. As she bounds up the steps, Shaun sees two men hovering over her terrified kids just as the metal shutter goes down over the window while the doors lock shut. Via the front gate’s intercom Shaun speaks with the leader of the gang, the cold, calculated Eddie (Billy Burke). He and his men, the soft-spoken sensitive Sam (Levi Meaden), knife-wielding sadist Duncan (Richard Cabral), and paranoid “techie” Peter (Mark Furze), are there to rob Isaac’s safe of over four million in cash. Thing is, they don’t know where that safe is hidden. Plus the clock’s ticking because reps for the home’s ADT-type service will be there within 90 minutes. Eddie tells Shaun that they’ll execute her kids unless she co-operates with them. But will the family really be spared if the gang gets the loot? Thus begins a most desperate game of cat and mouse as Shaun tries to outwit and fight back against overwhelming odds. But Eddie and his boys quickly find out that they’ve have made a huge mistake by underestimating her.
Union energetically leads the cast as they revisit several classic “action thriller” types. She’s not given much of a back story other than having a ‘strained’ relationship with her pop. There’s the briefest sequences in which Union gets to put her spin on a modern mom, as she alternates between nurturing and ordering (“bring in the luggage…right now!”). Once the attack begins, she’s in full manic mom mode, plotting strategies and dispatching hoods as though she were a former Navy SEAL. But Union does let us see a bit of her fear just under her “don’t mess with me” veneer. Alexus portrays a typical detached teen who’s engaging in the usual mother-daughter push and pull (think LADY BIRD with vent-crawling). Carr is a precocious “tech savant’ figuring out his Grandpa’s home security while his toy drone zips up and down the stairs (hmmm…wonder if that’ll be put into use against the bad guys). Speaking of, Burke, best known as Bella’s father in the TWILIGHT franchise, is in full “Hans Gruber” mastermind mode, softly threatening as he tries to keep his underlings in line. Luckily he’s more energetic and ruthless in the film’s last act. Meaden is the more mellow menace, a timid soul who “didn’t sign up” for Eddie’s brutal schemes. The scene stealing “boogy man” may be Cabral who gleefully fondles his holster knife, with a constant sneer curling his lips just inches above his torso full of tattoos. He puts the fear in the hostage family and his partners.
Action film vet James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA, NINJA ASSASSIN) directors the night-time mayhem with confidence, making good use of some standard horror film flourishes (audio crashes. killer popping in from out of frame). Unfortunately the decision to go for the more timid “PG-13” rating stiffles some of the tension and dilutes the suspense. The double crosses and near-misses become tiresome even for the film’s less than 90 minute running time. It may be a nice twist that Union’s going solo, but the “average folks versus evil invaders” is a familiar genre. It doesn’t help that the script never fleshes out anyone, good or bad, making them “types’ and ‘tropes’ rather than interesting characters. It delivers the scares promised in the ads, but this glorified basic cable TV film is quickly forgettable. BREAKING IN breaks no new ground.
1.5 Out of 5
