Breaking In is timed perfectly for Mother's Day

Movie Title:     Breaking In

Grade:  C-

Rating: PG-13, 
     88 minutes

In a Nutshell:  Just in time for Mother’s Day, Gabrielle Union does a good job showing us what any mama bear will do to protect her cubs.  

Unfortunately, the action-thriller movie is predictable and even toned down to earn the PG-13 rating.

Tips for parents: 

• While I was glad there weren’t a lot of F-bombs (there is 1), it was a bit odd to hear one of the bad guys use the word “friggin.” The intensity of peril at that point becomes laughable.  There is some other profanity.
• You see two people get run over by a car.
• The teenage daughter’s boyfriend makes her a playlist full of sex songs, but the mom brushes it off like it’s nothing worth talking about.  Parents, please talk to your kids about the consequences of sex as a teen.
• Teach your kids how to pick a lock.  Just sayin…
• Attempted rape, although you don’t see anything.  I would have gone full psycho revenge on that bad guy for that one act alone.
• Violence and deaths.

                                     

Uplifting theme: 

• Family
• Motherhood
• Tenacity

Things I liked:

• Gabrielle Union is the capable protagonist, as well as one of the producers of the movie.
• It’s refreshing that most of the decisions made were smart, rather than the usual dumb choices characters tend to make in this genre.
• Richard Cabral’s character is crazy bad, giving us the only real sense of urgency and peril that we want to see.
• Ajiona Alexus has such beautiful eyes.

Things I didn’t like:

• While I enjoyed the other action thrillers that writer Ryan Engle created, like Non-Stop and The Commuter (I'm a Liam Neeson fan), this film doesn’t bring anything new to the genre.
• The talented director of V for Vendetta, James McTeigue, doesn’t give us a clever, deep movie that we know he’s capable of; that movie was a masterpiece.
• Billy Burke’s character comes off looking bored during the entire movie.
• The characters were not really developed.  You never learn much about any of them.  One character shows up towards the end of the movie and you’re like, “Wait!  What?  Where did He come from? I thought…."
• A lot of the scenes are in a dark house or at night, so this movie might be hard to watch on a TV or computer monitor when it QUICKLY goes to the cheap DVD bin at Wal-Mart or online streaming.
• Lots of scampering around the house scenes.
• You’d think that if the dad built all of those security measures into the house that he would have hidden some guns somewhere.  Just sayin…
• "Payback" in the movie poster isn't quite the right word for what happens in the movie.  The mom gets mad and just wants to protect her kids, but she doesn't get crazy or seek revenge, like the movie poster promises.

Interesting lines:

• “Fear I can manage.  Desperation is a whole other thing.” – Eddie (Billy Burrke)
• “Moms don’t run (away).” – Eddie
• “You’re an impressive woman.” – Eddie

“No, I’m not.  I’m a mom.” – Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union)

A better movie in the same genre is:

                  

                                         

                                              @trinaboice