Breaking In (2018)

Do you remember Panic Room? It's an oft-overlooked entry in the filmography of David Fincher, although not as forgotten as The Game. Those two films have one thing in common. They are both superb thrillers, unjustly dismissed alongside a few other films that just happen to be modern classics. When I heard about Breaking In I immediately thought of Panic Room. The core idea is similar. That's the only comparison point between the two.

Gabrielle Union plays Shaun Russell, a woman who heads to the home of her late father in order to put things in order. She is there with her two children (played by Ajiona Alexus and Seth Carr). It's not too long until they're joined by some unwanted guests, a quartet of crooks who want inside the house to find $4M they believe is hidden in a safe on the premises. Things quickly go from bad to worse as Shaun finds herself locked out of the house while her children are held hostage inside. She's determined to get back in and save her family (hence the title).

It's not that this is a terrible movie, let me make that clear right now. When I watched Breaking In I felt that it passed the time easily enough. I was generally entertained, some of the cast stood out ahead of others, and it clocked in at a near-perfect runtime for this kind of thing (just under 90 minutes). It's not bad.

Unfortunately, it's not that good either. Considering the simple appeal of the premise, this should have been much better than it is. There's a feeling that everything has been clumsily slapped together, as opposed to being put together with real care. There's not enough moments allowing viewers to become accustomed to the geography of the house, for example, so one location just somehow links to another, and so on and so forth. The script, by Ryan Engle (from an idea by Jaime Primak Sullivan), is fairly weak, with Union absolutely defined by her maternal instinct, fair enough, while the criminals run through what seems to be a lengthy checklist of "standard criminal chatter 101". It's very telling indeed that this script from Engle is even weaker than another he worked on from the same year, Rampage.

Director James McTeigue fails to put any stamp on the proceedings, which is how he usually works (so many people still seem to think that V For Vendetta was directed by the Wachowskis), which is another thing that works against the end result. This is a film in need of something to lift it above the mass of clichés, and neither writer nor director offer up a thing.

Union is okay in the lead role. There are many other contenders who could have done the job better, but I find her to be a likeable presence in movies, and she's someone I can root for while she tries to outsmart villains and keep her cool. As for those villains, there may be four of them, but only two make a strong impression; Richard Cabral and Billy Burke. Cabral is the kind of guy who will do whatever it takes, making him a more threatening presence, while Burke seems to want everything to go as smoothly as possible, in a way that doesn't have to mean more bloodshed. Alexus and Carr are just fine as the imperilled children, even if they act a lot calmer than I would have in that situation (whether I was their age or the age I am now).

I like to think of myself as fairly easy to please, and those who know me can testify to that, and this will work for you if you're anything like me. I just don't think many people will love it, although it could certainly play better to women who can enjoy watching a badass mother who is actually . . . a badass MOTHER.

5/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.

V For Vendetta (2005)

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

It's sometimes heavy-handed, it's sometimes simplistic, it's NOT The Matrix (which is what many expected, I think, when this was heavily pushed as being from the Wachowskis, who wrote the script), but V For Vendetta is also absolutely brilliant stuff that packages some very interesting ideas in a mainstream blockbuster form. A lot of the themes explored in the movie are scarily pertinent to civilians living in first world countries nowadays and it's nice to be able to enjoy something so subversive that also has a couple of good action scenes thrown in for good measure.

Natalie Portman plays a young woman, Evey, who has her eyes opened one evening when she is saved from a nasty situation by a masked terrorist, V (Hugo Weaving, behind a Guy Fawkes mask for almost the entire runtime). V takes a liking to Evey, but things get complicated when she gets in the way during another of his spectacular strikes against the repressive government. This means that Evey becomes almost as wanted by the authorites as V, but one policeman (Stephen Rea) starts to dig around and starts to see what V might be trying to show the entire nation.

Directed by James McTeigue, and developed from a graphic novel by David Lloyd and Alan Moore, this is an action movie not designed for those who need a fight sequence every few minutes. It's paced carefully, allowing more time for the dialogue and ideas than the actions that they necessitate.

The cast all do a fantastic job. Portman just about carries off her English accent from start to finish, despite a few wobbles, and Weaving somehow invests his character with so much wit and intelligence that the mask he wears SEEMS expressive, despite the fact that it never really changes. Rea can do the tired, hangdog act about as well as it can be done, and his performance here is a treat. The casting of John Hurt as the leader in a Big Brother world may be a bit of a stunt, but it works. Elsewhere, Stephen Fry does a great job (perhaps, mostly, because he's voicing opinions that don't require him to stretch himself in the acting department), Tim Pigott-Smith and Rupert Graves do well with lesser roles, and Eddie Marsan, Sinead Cusack and Imogen Poots also do well, despite very limited screentime.

But the cast have the Wachowskis to thank (who can, in turn, thank Lloyd and Moore) for such great material. Love or hate their movies, it's hard to argue with the fact that the siblings have succeeded more than any other modern film-makers in packaging smart and/or potentially off-putting material into mainstream blockbusters.

I liked V For Vendetta when I first saw it, but now I love it. Part of that is, undoubtedly, to do with my recent, growing displeasure with the British government and the ever-growing economic divide. But a lot of it is to do with the fact that it's just a bloody great film.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/For-Vendetta-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B0019FLTI2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1381334033&sr=8-4&keywords=v+for+vendetta