Breaking

 2/4

Starring: John Boyega, Nicole Beharie, Selenis Levya, Michael K. Williams, Connie Britton, Olivia Washington, London Covington, Jeffrey Donovan

Rated PG-13 for Some Violent Content, and Strong Language

"Breaking" is one of those movies that begins to vanish from the memory as soon as the end credits roll.  If not before that.  Not even a set of nice performances can save this pedestrian hostage film.  In fact, "pedestrian" may not even be a strong enough word.  Banal and vapid seem more appropriate.

Brian Brown-Easley (Boyega) is on edge.  His life is falling apart.  He's divorced, unemployed and out of money.  One day he goes into a Wells Fargo bank and passes a note to the teller that he has a bomb.  Soon it's him and two hostages left in the bank: Rosa (Levya), the teller, and Estel (Beharie), the bank manager. But Brian's motives aren't simply financial.  He has something else driving him.

Few things are more dramatic than a hostage situation.  Many films, from "Speed" to "Inside Man," have capitalized on its inherent tension.  The stakes are high and so is the potential for things to go wrong.  However, it's the director's job to get the audience to feel that unease, and it's not a task that director Abi Damaris Corbin is up to.  She can't capture the chaos or terror in such a situation, so when things escalate, we don't feel it.

To be fair, this is not strictly a heist film.  Despite Brian's money problems, his end goal isn't the bank's money.  He's not greedy, he's angry.  He's been wronged and this is the only way he feels he can get someone's attention.  His unusual motive (for a heist film) gives the film a bit of a new flavor, but that's not much.  Certainly not enough to overcome Corbin's flat approach.  Interestingly, I thought a lot of "I, Daniel Blake" while watching this movie, and that connection, tenuous as it is, only serves to show how boring this "Breaking" is.

If there's one thing that the film has in its favor, it's that it has a cast of nice performances.  John Bodega has repeatedly shown that he's got more in him than a "Star Wars" hero.  He buries himself in Brian's skin so deeply that it's hard to believe that it's him.  Unfortunately the script doesn't do him any favors.  We don't know enough about him to earn our sympathy.  Case in point: the scene where the truth of what happened to him is revealed is done in such a slapdash manor that it answers nothing.  As good as he is, Boyega is eclipsed by Nicole Beharie.  Estel is terrified, but she keeps a cool head as much as she can.  She's able to size the situation up and assert herself as much as he can.  She quickly realizes that Brian is no ordinary criminal, and uses that to her advantage.  The other cast members, including Michael K. Williams (in his final role), Connie Britton and Jeffrey Donovan are all solid.

This is based on a true story, and perhaps Cordin wanted to respect it by not going for overblown melodrama.  That's a good idea in theory, but she fails to create fully written characters or recreate the tension of the situation.  "Breaking" does generate a few tense scenes and a moment that made me jump, but that's it.

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