BREAKING IN

                               

  Breaking In: A Low-Key Monster Movie 
Shaun Russell takes her son and daughter on a weekend getaway to her late father's secluded, high-tech vacation home in the countryside. The family soon gets an unwelcome surprise when four men break into the house to find hidden money. After managing to escape, Shaun must now figure out a way to break in,turn the tables on the desperate thieves and save her captive children. 

   Starring Gabrielle Union, Ajiona Alexus, Richard Cabral, Billy Burke, Mark Furze and Levi meaden. This movie, we can safely say did not pack an A-list character ensemble but we can at least say with pride that what the movie lacked in character richness, it made up for in story, presentation and out and out action.
  Let's get straight to the story; the story is basic, a home invasion involving an unsuspecting family, and their struggles to get out of a precarious situation. That seems like a basic everyday story plot yea? Cliché some might even call it. However, whereas the general plot theme element may seem basic, the writers did a number on the conflict element, deriving a different unique element from the story/ plot theme and presenting an extraordinary narrative. The narrative is extraordinary not because it presented award winning content, but rather because it chose to tell a simple, regular and common story in a different altogether new way and manner.

   What we love so much about this movie is that it deviated from the basic cliché of home invasions by presenting a situation where the victim, being the protagonist was not only interested in breaking out of the home, as is the usual narrative, but rather Shaun was more interested in breaking into the house to rescue her children.
   This was a brilliant move by the production team, as this captivated the audience and presented a situation that made for a compelling tale, more so as Shaun was of the weaker sex( physical) faced against four(4) of the stronger sex.  This gave us a direction, a focus and a desire to wait and see which way the writer would resolve the quagmire it had drawn the audience into. We had to wait to find out how, if possible, she was going to be able to outwit the thieves, and we were very much not disappointed.
    Where we may however have had an issue with this movie was with Duncan and Sam, being two personality opposites, thereby creating a divide or a crack in the plot for exploitation. We would have preferred a united front taken down by our protagonist, but hey, we got what we got and we can't complain too much.
    We must also dedicate a section to the actors, with particular credit to Gabrielle and Cabral, the fierce, composed and assured acting prowess of Gabrielle was perfectly complemented by the cold, brutal and nasty delivery of Cabral. Cabral had everything we wanted from a street savvy petty thief, while Gabrielle brought her experience and veteran qualities to bear.
We have however found the performance of Burke dissatisfying! We did expect a lot from a veteran of the silver screens, but we didn't get one, this may be attributed to the script writer who inadvertently relegated his character to the background ( how they did that surprises me,  seeing as he is the leader of the gang).

 We however will conclude on a high by rating the conflict resolution an above average rating. The way the conflict was resolved may have appeared to be easily Predictable, but the crew have however managed to throw in a few screws to throw us the audience off our predictive high horse, by not only throwing in a surprise element at the very end, but playing a card reminiscent of a horror story. It will kinda remind you of I Know what you did last Summer and the sequel.
  To our strong women out there this one will suit you proper. Shaun definitely represents what every woman or tries or strives to be. She saw a problem and took on the challenge and did indeed solve it. We particularly liked the fact that she wasn't a bickering type of Lady, she tried the easy way, and did it the hard way, brilliant!
     Finally, Gabrielle took on a character role that was not a stereotypical black woman role. She was becoming stuck on those type of Tyler Perry inspired black woman role, and we liked that she is being recognised for her talent away from black drama. She can be a superhero if she wanted to.
    We rate this movie high, for acting, story telling and conflict resolution complexity. Action is on a down low, suspense element is average but overall content delivery is top notch, most especially when you compare budget ( a meagre 6million USD), star quality and the output.
Produced by Gabrielle Union, James Lopez and Craig Perry.
 We rate this one a massive 8.2/10 FCA AppR.