BREAKING IN

Name: BREAKING IN
Item: BREAKING IN
Author: Steph Manthe

"Don’t Ever Underestimate a Mother"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

In the thriller BREAKING IN, Shaun takes her two children to Wisconsin to close out her deceased father’s estate, which was her childhood home. When they arrive, they’re attacked by criminals trying to find a safe they believe has loads of cash. Shaun is separated from her children who are hostages of the criminals inside the fortified house. She’ll have to outsmart the bad guys if she’s going to save her children.

Despite some uneven acting and cliched villains, BREAKING IN is a halfway decent thriller with a pro-motherhood bent. As the mother, Gabrielle Union delivers an appealing performance. She earns sympathy from viewers and inspires them to root for this desperate, determined mother. Also, none of the family members are cowardly. Even the children act bravely and are willing to defend themselves. That said, BREAKING IN does have lots of intense action violence, some foul language, and a couple carnal references. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children. BREAKING IN isn’t the most clever thriller, nor the most exciting, but it’s entertaining and has some positive messages about family and motherhood.

Content:

(BB, C, Ho, LLL, VV, S, A, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview with redemptive elements about courage and family love and with a strong positive representation of motherhood, plus a character says, “Thank God,” and there’s a vague reference to homosexual activity in male populated prisons;

Foul Language:

17 obscenities (mostly “s” words and b**** with one “f” word) and three profanities;

Violence:

Moderate to heavy action violence, but no graphic gore, mother and her children are attacked by men, the mother fights off the men but is hit and kicked many times and sustains some bruises and cuts, two shots of men getting hit by a truck, man is stabbed with wine glass stem, woman is nearly choked, a person’s throat is sliced off screen, a person is shot and stabbed, and a person falls off a roof;

Sex:

Some sexual references such as a little brother says his sister’s boyfriend made her a playlist of “sex songs,” criminal references about trying to rape teenage daughter, but that intention doesn’t get far, and a vague reference is made to prison sodomy;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

Woman drinks a glass of wine;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs;

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Criminals break into a house and take two children hostage.

More Detail:

BREAKING IN is a thriller about a mother willing to do anything to save her two children from criminals holding them hostage.

Shaun Russell was never close to her super rich father, whom she knew was a criminal of some kind. Shaun learns her father was killed in a hit and run. So, she and her two children travel to her childhood home in the Wisconsin woods to finalize selling the estate. The enormous house where she grew up was transformed into a heavily fortified safe house, since her dad was on the brink of being investigated and arrested before he died.

Shaun’s teenage daughter, Jasmine, pretty much sticks to her phone, but her son, Glover, loves all the fancy security tech in the house. When Shaun steps outside to make some phone calls, four men grab the children inside the house, and a man attacks Shaun outside. Shaun fights off the men and breaks free, but the men inside put the house on lockdown with the children.

It turns out the men killed Shaun’s father, so they could break into his house and steal a large amount of cash hidden in a secret safe. Shaun must break into the house and outsmart the four criminals. What the bad guys don’t know is how far this mother is willing to go to rescue her children from danger.

BREAKING IN is a halfway decent thriller with a pro-motherhood bent, despite some uneven acting and painfully clichéd villains. As the mother, Gabrielle Union delivers an appealing performance. She earns lots of sympathy from viewers and makes it exciting for the audience to root for this desperate, determined mother. Unlike the TAKEN movies, Shaun isn’t written to be a mother with a hidden set of fighting skills. Instead, she’s a fairly normal mother who refuses to let her children get harmed. Thus, it’s no accident BREAKING IN was released on Mother’s Day weekend. Ultimately, the mother’s ingenuity at fooling the criminals in BREAKING IN is a bit more on the level of HOME ALONE rather than DIE HARD or other classic hostage movies.

Also, none of the family members in BREAKING IN are cowardly. Even the children act bravely and are willing to defend themselves against the bad guys. It’s encouraging and gratifying to see a story where characters aren’t just passive victims.

In addition to the movie’s positive theme that mothers who love their children never leave them, the children also love their mother and each other. The movie also shows that people don’t have to repeat the same mistakes as their parents.

While BREAKING IN doesn’t have an extreme or really graphic level of violence, there are a few cruel moments of violence, plus some foul language, including one “f” word. Also, there are a couple sexual references. For instance, the younger brother says his sister’s boyfriend made her a playlist of “sex songs.” In addition, one of the criminals intends to rape the teenage daughter, but that plot development doesn’t go far.

BREAKING IN isn’t the most clever thriller, nor the most exciting, but it’s entertaining and entertaining and has some uplifting messages about family and motherhood. MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.