"Breaking In" (Guardian 11/05/18)

Breaking In ***

Dir: James McTeigue. With: Gabrielle Union, Billy Burke, Richard Cabral, Ajiona Alexus. 88 mins. Cert: 15

Two female-led payback thrillers in a week: something looks to have shifted within the culture. (What exactly remains to be seen: Revenge could equally be paired with last month’s Death Wish as evidence of a violent lurch to the right.) Breaking In is the major studio option, which means a male writer and director, fewer nasty edges and minimised bloodshed (as if someone at Universal was hedging for a lower rating); it also unfolds around one of those implausibly vast, only-in-the-movies properties, replete with poolroom, expansive crawlspace and a security system to set any CIA wonk to salivating. Nevertheless, this viewer caught himself giggling at just how well it was working.

Gabrielle Union is the protective mother who arrives in rural Wisconsin – sans husband, but with young son and daughter in tow – to oversee the sale of her no-good father’s estate. Suspicions are raised that somebody may have beaten her there; these are borne out with the appearance of four variably stubbly louses – headed by Twilight’s Billy Burke – with eyes on the $4m in dad’s safe. Momma Bear is soon on the wrong side of the house’s electronic shutters, with her kids being held hostage indoors – a nimble reversal of standard siege-movie procedure, in that our sympathies now reside with the figure on the outside looking in.

Is it significant that this individual should be a female of colour? Journeyman director James McTeigue’s better work (V for Vendetta, Sense8) has always maintained an element of social commentary: we sense him lingering when Burke tells Union “you are a woman, alone, at the mercy of strangers”, which makes it even more cathartic whenever our resourceful heroine locates a weak spot. That subtext provides the only spice in what’s basically a meat-and-potatoes runaround, but these 88 minutes never drag their heels long enough for us to get hung up on their myriad implausibilities. One of those low-expectation releases that’ll see you right if Infinity War remains sold out.

Breaking In opens today in cinemas nationwide.