Breaking, 2022.
Co-written and directed by Abi Damaris Corbin.
Starring John Boyega, Michael K. Williams, Nicole Beharie, Olivia Washington, Selenis Leyva, and Connie Britton.
SYNOPSIS:
A Marine war veteran faces mental and emotional challenges when he tries to reintegrate back into civilian life.
Abi Damaris Corbin’s feature debut is a textbook example of a film that seemingly has all the right ingredients for a stone cold classic – namely important subject matter and a great cast – but can’t quite nail the most essential elements. As a result, this based-on-true-events hostage thriller feels a touch too programmatic and scattershot to land with blistering impact, despite boasting a bevy of fine performances.
At the start of Breaking, former U.S. Marine Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) walks into an Atlanta branch of the Wells Fargo bank and explains to one of the tellers that he has a bomb, before instructing them to call 911. Brian’s demand? For a missing disability payment to be deposited into his bank account by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The missing payment, a seemingly bureaucratic snafu, means that Brian is unable to even afford phone credit to speak to his daughter, and leaves him hours away from being kicked out of the hotel he’s living in.
Now, just about any bank heist/hostage movie of this sort is going to be compared to the crowned king of the genre, Dog Day Afternoon, and while the two cases are indeed very different, Brown-Easley’s scenario is at least a similarly morally ambiguous one.
Sure, he’s putting the remaining teller (Selenis Leyva) and the bank’s manager Estel (Nicole Beharie) through hell, but this is a man left hanging at the end of his rope by a government and a society that wants to thank him for his service and send him swiftly away. The film’s title refers to the missing payment of $892, which while perhaps not a mass of money to many, typifies the wider issue of Brian not being afforded the most basic impression of worth and dignity.
Brian being a Black man obviously layers a major racial component onto the conflict; when he speaks to the 911 dispatcher, one of their first questions quite predictably regards his race. On top of the tension over whether or not Brian will detonate the bomb, audiences also have to fret about the very clear possibility that he will be killed by the police, a fact he’s acutely aware of from the outset. Were Brian white we might consider his immediate fear of being shot by a sniper excessive – and, in fairness, Brian is clearly suffering from debilitating mental health – but such is the lack of regard with which Black lives are held by so many.
Stockholm Syndrome is basically a trope of the hostage movie at this point, though Breaking explores a very different kind of identification per the dynamic between Brian and bank manager Estel. The latter, a strong-willed Black woman who desperately wants to leave the bank and be reunited with her son, nevertheless empathises with Brian, feeling guilt over the many suffering people she herself has had to reject for financial help. But she desperately implores Brian not to make himself another dead Black person she needs to shield her son from learning about.
And then there’s Brian’s interactions with Eli Bernard (Michael K. Williams), a Black hostage negotiator who expresses a legitimate desire to see Brian come out of this alive rather than become another race statistic.
On top of all this, there’s the media circus, and though Dog Day Afternoon‘s indictment remains well-aged today, it’s updated here by exploring the tension between the media and the police to control the situation, and also briefly touch on the means through which such situations are disseminated in the social media age. With Facebook and Twitter granting unfiltered immediacy that TV simply can’t, we’re no longer hunched over CNN when these sorts of scenarios unfold.
This all adds up to a competent piece of work, but one that’s also a little stock in how it handles its major themes. Cutting busily between the bank, the newsroom, and Brian’s family often feels perfunctory, and a tighter treatment kept more intently within the bank’s four walls might’ve felt more visceral. There are also a few moments of attempted levity the mileage of which will likely vary among audiences, namely two bizarre references to the X-Men, and a woman calling the bank mid-siege to inquire about her 401K.
Yet even when it hits its most familiar notes, we have John Boyega, whose portrayal of a world-weary man begging to be respected by the institutions supposed to protect him is extremely affecting. Boyega’s performance is volcanically intense from the jump, boiling with rage as he insists, “I’m gonna die because of human error.” In another version of this story such a portrayal might seem like overacting, but that white-hot, indignant fury is a sure cathartic scream into the void for an entire class of people left behind by the government.
The supporting cast also turns in fine work; Nicole Beharie is wonderfully pissed off as Estel, summing the situation up perfectly when she asks the authorities, “How long does it take to put money into a man’s account?” The late Michael K. Williams meanwhile makes one of his final screen appearances as negotiator Eli, arriving to perk the movie up in its second act just as it shows the first signs of flagging.
It’s not a flashy role by any means, but for an actor who has played so many larger-than-life characters, it’s great to see his calming presence put to such inspired use; his over-the-phone interactions with Boyega are at once entertainingly jovial and agonisingly tense.
All in all, this is a solidly made movie that can’t always get out of its own way to let the story’s full power take hold. Though the unsettling climax is executed well, an overly cutesy frame narrative element – involving Brian talking to his daughter – feels out of place and on-the-nose, and ends up undercutting what is a crushing final title card revelation.
Despite the worthiness of the subject matter, Breaking never quite transcends its procedural filmmaking, though John Boyega’s fiery performance packs a mighty punch.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
