Tag Archives: Burglary

Breaking and Exiting (2018)

17 Monday Sep 2018

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D: Peter Facinelli / 78m

Cast: Milo Gibson, Jordan Hinson, Adam Huber, James Kyson, Lily Anne Harrison, Justine Wachsberger, Joaquim de Almeida

Harry (Gibson) is a career criminal, a burglar who targets homes when the owners are away on holiday, and who aren’t gun owners. Along with his cousin, Chris (Huber), he makes enough money to ensure he doesn’t have to get a proper job. One day, Chris announces that their next burglary will be his last: he has a temp job lined up, and he doesn’t want to wind up in jail. Harry is dismissive of Chris’s ambition, but their last burglary goes badly wrong and they’re lucky to avoid being caught. Harry still doesn’t Chris is being serious, but finds himself carrying out their next job on his own. While he goes from room to room gathering valuables and electronics, he discovers a woman (Hinson) in the bath who is trying to kill herself. Harry’s inherent lack of empathy causes him to point her in the direction of tablets that will help her achieve her aim, and then he leaves. But he doesn’t get far before he suffers a rare attack of conscience, and rushes back to try and save the woman, an unselfish act that sees him behaving in a way that’s completely new to him…

A romantic comedy (whose humour is largely on the dark, uncomfortable side), Breaking and Exiting does something unexpected from the start: it brings the viewer in  at a point where Harry is making the decision to return and save the woman – who is called Daisy – from killing herself. So, from the beginning we know that Harry isn’t as bad as the screenplay will subsequently paint him as it rewinds the action back a few days. As a result we can bear Harry’s selfish, egoistic behaviour and attitude towards Chris, and his girlfriend, Lana (Wachsberger), partly because it’s inappropriately funny, and partly because we know he’s going to change. Hinson, who wrote the script and also produces as well as starring, wisely allows the viewer to have some vicarious fun through Harry’s unalloyed narcissism before showing us the good heart he has buried deep, deep inside him. But he’s also curious, just like the viewer, to find out why Daisy wants to kill herself. There’s a boyfriend she’s angry with, but it always seems as though that’s merely a small part of it all, and just as she teases out Harry’s deeply-rooted compassion, so we slowly learn what’s at the root of her unhappiness.

Along the way, Harry and Daisy get to know each other, and although there are a handful of generic rom-com moments, the script does its best to steer clear of anything too obvious as the story develops. Harry is open and honest about his criminal activities, while Daisy behaves wildly and erratically in line with her current mental state. It’s not until Harry challenges Daisy to let him cook her a final meal that mixed emotions on both sides begin to coalesce into something more stable for both of them. Hinson is a winning presence, likeable and endearing even when talking about suicide with determination, while Gibson (looking and sounding very much like his father), has an easy-going charm about him that is appealing and sincere. Together, the pair add a surprising amount of texture and depth to their characters, and when things turn more serious, they make the necessary switch in tone that much more believable. Facinelli directs with a good understanding of the absurdity of the basic set up, but makes it work in tandem with his committed leads, and offers up a neatly assembled and handled rom-com that does its best to avoid being predictable in its details.

Rating: 8/10 – with the chemistry between Gibson and Hinson an added plus, and Hinson’s screenplay balancing humour and more serious matters with aplomb, Breaking and Exiting is that rare rom-com that could have benefited from being longer; with fluid, emotive camerawork from DoP Christopher Hamilton and his team, and a terrific soundtrack, the movie has more than enough going on for even the most casual of viewers.

I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore. (2017)

01 Saturday Sep 2018

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D: Macon Blair / 93m

Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Elijah Wood, David Yow, Devon Graye, Jane Levy, Gary Anthony Williams, Myron Natwick, Christine Woods, Robert Longstreet

Ruth (Lynskey) is a nursing assistant who is continually annoyed by the thoughtlessness of others. When she comes home from work one day to find that she’s been burgled and the thief has stolen her laptop, grandmother’s silverware and some prescription medication, her day is made even worse when the investigating detective, Bendix (Williams), chides her for leaving her back door unlocked. Later, as she goes door to door to see if anyone saw anything, she meets Tony (Wood) who becomes violently outraged at what has happened. Ruth discovers evidence in her backyard – a conspicuous shoeprint in the mud – and when she uses a phone app to track her laptop, and discovers its location, Bendix is uninterested. Needing someone to go with her to retrieve her laptop, Ruth asks Tony, who’s only too keen to do so. When they get it back, they learn it was bought from a resale shop. There, Ruth discovers her grandmother’s silverware, and as she tries to sneak it out, she also discovers a young man (Graye) at the counter wearing a shoe that’s a match for the print in her garden…

The words ‘quirky’ and ‘unconventional’ seem tailor-made for I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore., Macon Blair’s feature debut as a writer/director. You could add ‘wacky’ and ‘peculiar’, and they wouldn’t be too far off the mark either. But while there are plenty of other low budget indie movies that fit those descriptions quite easily, what Blair has achieved here is something a little more rarefied. In Ruth, there’s a temptation to view this as a “worm has turned” story, but that would be to cast a superficial eye over both the material and Ruth herself. Ruth may be one of Life’s minor victims, and she may appear to be a bystander in her own life, but she has an innate strength of character that just needs the right stimulus to bring her into her own. Being robbed does just that, and by aligning herself with Tony – who has a number of his own issues – Ruth becomes empowered in a way she’s unfamiliar with. It’s a step in the right direction, but Blair is confident enough in his screenplay to ensure that Ruth’s journey doesn’t change her completely. By the end, she’s more positive, but she’s still finding herself.

By making Ruth’s journey one that is affectionately handled and which resonates far more than expected, Blair has gifted Lynskey with yet another terrific role for the actress to make her own. Whether she’s sipping beer from a bottle out of habit, or being instinctively happy when she finds others are reading the same book she is, Ruth is a wonderful creation. Blair is equally on form with the rest of the characters, with Wood’s NWBHM-loving Tony prone to inappropriate violent outbursts, and Graye’s troubled teen burglar, Christian, having a back story that takes the material into unforeseen territory. In amongst the millennial concerns and suburban drama there’s a great deal of comedy, from Ruth’s look when asked the last words of a deceased patient, to a lovely visual gag involving Tony’s dog, Kevin, and the reaction of Christian’s stepmother (Woods) when asked why she’s speaking to two fake cops (that she knows are fake cops). Blair’s ‘quirky’ sensibility ensures the movie is always interesting for what’s going to happen next, and there’s first-rate cinematography from Larkin Seiple that paints Ruth’s particular part of suburbia as a bright yet deceptively unstable place to live.

Rating: 8/10 – another wonderful performance from the always reliable Lynskey anchors I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore., and makes it one of the more enjoyable indie movies of recent years; with such a good meld of drama and comedy, and a cruel streak to keep things ‘unconventional’, Blair’s directorial debut is so good that his next movie can’t come quickly enough.

Death Wish (2018)

24 Thursday May 2018

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D: Eli Roth / 107m

Cast: Bruce Willis, Vincent D’Onofrio, Elisabeth Shue, Camila Morrone, Dean Norris, Beau Knapp, Kimberly Elise, Len Cariou, Jack Kesy, Ronnie Gene Blevins

Paul Kersey (Willis) is a trauma surgeon working at a Chicago hospital. He has a wife, Lucy (Shue), and a teenage daughter, Jordan (Morrone), who is about to go off to college. One night, while Kersey is working, three burglars break into his home while everyone is out, but Lucy and Jordan return while they’re still there. Lucy is killed, and Jordan suffers a skull fracture that leaves her in a coma. The police, represented by Detective Kevin Raines (Norris) and Detective Leonore Jackson (Elise), offer hope that they’ll catch the men responsible, but with no leads, time passes and Kersey begins to wonder if he’ll ever have justice for his family. Angry at the police’s inability to protect people, Kersey becomes a vigilante, and earns the soubriquet The Grim Reaper. When a gunshot victim is admitted to the ER and is wearing one of Kersey’s stolen watches, it provides him with enough information to begin tracking down the men the police can’t find. But as he hunts them down, Raines and Jackson become suspicious of his actions, and the leader of the men (Knapp) targets him directly…

The idea of a remake of Michael Winner’s exploitation “classic” has been mooted for a while now (since 2006 when Sylvester Stallone was set to direct and star). There have been a few stops and starts along the way, and now we have the combination of Eli Roth and Bruce Willis, and a movie that has all the charm and appeal of applying haemorrhoid cream. There’s no other way of putting it: this incarnation of Death Wish is appalling, a right-wing political tract that lacks the courage of its own convictions, and strives for relevance in a day and age where violence is a sad, every day occurrence in the good old US of A. While talking heads debate the merits of having a vigilante on the streets of Chicago, Willis’s monotone Kersey goes on a journey of violent wish-fulfillment that screams “under-developed!” For a surgeon with no previous experience of handling a gun even, he’s able to act with impunity (he takes out a drug dealer on the street – in daylight – without being shot at by anyone), and even when he takes on the burglars, he leaves no evidence of his involvement.

So while Kersey gets away with murder, the police amble through proceedings like unwitting sleepwalkers at a narcolepsy convention (they even have time to joke about their investigation with their boss). It’s laughable, and something of an insult to the talent and skill of Joe Carnahan, the sole credited writer of this farrago, whose original script was re-written once Roth came on board. With a plethora of poorly written characters (D’Onofrio plays Kersey’s brother, but why he’s even there is impossible to work out), dialogue that sounds like a deaf person’s idea of dialogue, and Kersey’s motivations remaining murky at best, this is further sabotaged by Roth’s inability to maintain a consistent tone or invest proceedings with any appreciable energy. Willis continues to look bored out of his skull (a too common occurrence these days), the bad guys are straight out of generic villain central casting, and the action scenes are the nearest the movie comes to waking up. It has all the hallmarks of a movie that was rushed into production before the rights ran out, or worse, was rushed into production without anyone having a clear idea of what they were doing. So they truly did have a death wish…

Rating: 3/10 – abandoning any notion of moral ambiguity from the outset, Death Wish – Roth’s exploitation-free remake – is as dull as they come, and as ineptly handled as you’d expect; if you need any proof, just watch the early scene where Kersey “consoles” a cop whose partner has just died – and then hang your head in dismay.