Film Review: Breaking In

"I Know This Is Not How You Wanted To Spend Your Weekend..."

Directed by James McTeigue, a filmmaker who has never really eclipsed the success of his debut big-screen feature in the form of the rather excellent V for Vendetta, Breaking In, starring Gabrielle Union (Sleepless) in the leading role as mother of two, Shaun Russell, is essentially a hybrid crossover of a wide range of famous, historic movies, one which sees Russell attempt to save her children after they are locked inside a ultra-secure familial home with violent burglars who have come to claim a large monetary stash for their own. With a strange shadow of Panic Room airing over it, McTeigue's movie is undeniably wrapped in B-Movie sensibility, and as the action moves from paranoid thriller to Die Hard territory and arguably even more so onto Hostage territory, a movie which in itself was a rather perfunctory rip-off of Die Hard anyhow and a film which too featured Bruce Willis, Breaking In is a movie which ultimately knows its boundaries, its' flaws and complete lack of substance but runs with it anyway, and with a kick-ass leading heroine in the form of Union undeniably audience winning, McTeigue's movie surprisingly falls into the category of enjoyable silliness.

With dialogue so exposition heavy throughout it seems to have been churned out in a cliched text machine, the first twenty minutes highlights the rather extreme security capabilities of the household in which Union's Shaun has been tasked with selling after the sudden and unexpected death of her powerful father. With drones, bulletproof wall coverings and more CCTV coverage than the city of London, the stage is set for the action to unfold, and whilst the movie does fall rather heavily into generic conventions in regards to its' typeface leading villain, lack of real tangible peril and an overly predictable Hollywood ending, the real interest resides in Union's portrayal of a mother figure who will do absolutely anything in order to be re-united with her children, no matter what the consequences and how violent they may be. With laughable editing of obvious foul language and a mixed degree to which on-screen violence is approached, it seems obvious the filmmakers opted for a Taken 3 sensibility by aiming for the 12A threshold which ultimately was rejected, but with a classy eighty minute runtime and enough twisting, narrative turns in order to get to the film's inevitable conclusion, Breaking In isn't exactly groundbreaking but it does the job comfortably enough and for that I'm more than happy with. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: Sleepless

"Whatever You're Aiming At, Make Sure You're Prepared To Kill It..."

Whilst I enjoy B-Movie action trash as much as the next man, with a vast amount of films I consider to be my cinematic "guilty pleasures" each having an embedded sense of action-packed silliness at their very heart, Sleepless, directed by Swiss filmmaker Baran bo Odar and starring Jamie Foxx in the leading role is the type of bullet-ridden garbage which really makes you wonder whether any of the people involved in the creation of such a masterstroke of mediocrity really wanted to go through with its' release. With a sloppy and cliched narrative at its core, gridlocked around some god-awful dialogue and drowse inducing set pieces, Sleepless is an obvious and cheap attempt to recreate the recent success of films such as the underground sensibility of the first Taken movie and the gritty and violent representations of action in films such as John Wick and The Raid, but with nothing whatsoever original or interesting to note, Sleepless is a grade-A shipwreck of a movie which although isn't as head-bashing in retrospect, is still a film which makes The Rock look like Citizen Kane. 

After playing two sides of the law for almost two years in a supposed deeply disturbing and tension-filled undercover operation to bring down the top dogs of Las Vegas's drug scene, Jamie Foxx's Vincent Downs becomes a red-laced target for Dermot Mulroney's high-stakes businessman Stanley and Scoot McNairy's Rob Novak, a highly strung criminal drug-lord with serious daddy issues, after stealing a large quantity of cocaine with corrupt police officer partner Sean Cass, portrayed in almost non-existent fashion by the annoyingly named T.I. What follows for a seemingly never-ending 90 minutes is endless chase scenes, an overkill of unnecessary violence and one of the worst character introductions I have ever seen when Gabrielle Union's character is crow-barred into the concluding act in the most pitiful and woefully written way possible. With an ending which sets up the possibility of a potential sequel, Sleepless ironically and inevitably is the type of movie which has the confounded effect on its' audiences which completely contradicts its' meaningless title with Odar's first high-profile release more likely to send you into fits of snoring rather than keep you entertained and feel like you've spent your well-earned money well. 

Overall Score: 3/10