BUMBLING ALONG WITH THE VILLAINS

GIVE credit where it’s due to the flimsy home-invasion thriller Breaking In, directed by Wachowski sisters protégé James Mcteigue (V for Vendetta).

It wastes little time getting to the action, such as it is: no sooner have Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union) and her two children, teen daughter Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus) and younger son Glover (Seth Carr), arrived at the isolated mansion of Shaun’s estranged father, Isaac (Damien Leake), than a quartet of thieving antagonists make themselves known. Isaac, who has been murdered in a precredits sequence, has left a small fortune behind in a safe hidden somewhere on the heavily secured property, and the scowling Eddie (Billy Burke) and his cronies want to get their hands on the cash.

Shaun must rely on her particular set of motherly skills to keep her family safe. But she comes off less as a strongwilled person than a construct engineered from the DNA of other, more memorable movie survivalists, such as Die Hard’s John Mcclane (she spends much of the film perilously barefoot), Panic Room’s Meg Altman and, most goofily, Home Alone’s Kevin Mccallister (she uses whatever is at hand to repel her bumbling enemies).

And, boy, do these guys bumble. At least Burke gives good glower. His three subordinates, tattooed psycho Duncan (Richard Cabral), nerve-racked tweaker Sam (Levi Meaden) and former military muscle Peter (Mark Furze), are the kind of one-note villains who exist solely to prove their own idiocy and ineptitude. Per the film’s cheeky tag line, “Payback is a mother!”

Union certainly dedicates herself to all the huffing, running, jumping and emoting, though her efforts never counter Breaking In’s aura of trashiness and disposability. And the PG-13 rating dictates that her rampage will be nowhere near the bloody purge demanded by a low-grade exploitation flick like this.

At least it ensures viewers a quick escape and an easy forget. – The Hollywood Reporter