‘Breaking’ Review: A Bank Holdup by an Ex-Marine, for Benefits

In July, 2017, a former Marine named Brian Easley walked right into a Wells Fargo department in Marietta, Ga., and offered a word saying he was carrying a bomb. Easley had no intention of robbing the financial institution. Slightly, his ill-conceived plan was to air his grievance with the Division of Veterans Affairs. He had come to depend on funds he was due, and so they had been withheld.

“Breaking,” directed by Abi Damaris Corbin from a script she wrote with Kwame Kwei-Armah (primarily based on an article by Aaron Gell), dramatizes the day when Easley took two hostages and commenced frantic, typically confused conversations with legislation enforcement and information media. (“I have to be on digital camera,” he shouts right into a cellphone at one level.)

There’s a faint, can’t-be-helped echo of Sidney Lumet’s fact-based 1975 “Canine Day Afternoon” on this image. However one of many extra spectacular options of “Breaking” is an replace of kinds: It depicts in stomach-churning element how the up to date militarization of legislation enforcement creates an environment wherein violence is close to inevitable. This conscientious consideration balances out the film’s occasional lapses into sentimentality.

John Boyega performs Easley, and his voice intonations and eye actions typically recall Denzel Washington’s. (Washington performed a hostage-taker within the rather more hyper drama “John Q.”) He however creates a reputable character right here, one each exasperating (as a lot as one sympathizes with Easley’s plight, his actions are inexcusable) and heartbreaking. Nicole Beharie and Selenis Leyva are excellent as Easley’s frazzled hostages.

This was the ultimate movie accomplished by Michael Okay. Williams (right here billed as Michael Kenneth Williams), who died final fall. He’s past excellent within the function of a compassionate police negotiator, and the movie is, its different virtues apart, an upsetting reminder of how a lot he shall be missed.

Breaking
Rated PG-13 for language and violent content material. Operating time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters.