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Breaking In
I went into this with low expectations. From the brief trailer I saw, I felt justified in assuming a formulaic family home invasion movie. Even the title ''Breaking In'' even suggests to this. But turns out I got two things wrong. For one, this is not a bog standard home invasion film, its flipped- the mother, Shaun (played by Gabrielle Union) is trying to break into her house, and second, it's certainly not bog standard.
This film finally gives us a female lead that genuinely at no point does she do something stupid that inevitably leads to her dying or causing someone she loves to die needlessly. Actually, this character's intelligence and ability to handle herself physically is both a strength and a weakness of the film. It was highly refreshing to see a non-moronic person in this situation (i,e hey, lets split up from my friends and wander into the dark woods alone when I know there's a murder out there called Mr Killer Axe, or hey lets hit the bad guy down once then run away leaving him to kill me later...why not smash his head in you cretin??!!
Anyway, I'm sitting in the cinema enjoying myself, watching this no bullsh*t character trying to get into the building where their family is held hostage by multiple villains, I realise what this film most closely resembles. DIE HARD. Yes, this is in fact a small scale version of the classic action movie Die Hard, with a female John McClane. She even loses her shoes at one stage! The antagonists' leader played by Billy Burke (apparently of Twilight fame), lets call him Hans, was the perfect foil to Shaun. He thinks logically and tries to anticipate and force Shaun into situations- like in a sick home invasion version of chess. Yeah so he and his cronies may be a little generic- yes they want ALL THE MONEY, but hey, this was easy to watch, no nonsense entertainment that didn't leave you screaming for villain to kill stupid ass protagonist who deserves to die.
I've checked out a couple of the poor reviews of this film already and they seem harsh. Clearly they don't think that Die Hard is one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.
If you've seen Avengers already and want to go see something that won't make you want to tear your eyes out like I assume 'I feel pretty' and 'Life of the Party' are, then go see Breaking In. Yippee ki yay!