Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Shaun Russell takes her son and daughter on a weekend getaway to her late father's secluded, high-tech vacation home in the countryside. The family soon gets an unwelcome surprise when four men break into the house to find hidden money. After managing to escape, Shaun must now figure out a way to turn the tables on the desperate thieves and save her captive children.
Breaking In is a competent but formulaic home-invasion thriller that reverses the usual dynamic by putting the mother outside trying to get in. The premise has some clever irony but the script fails to fully exploit it, relying on genre clichés and underdeveloped villains. Gabrielle Union delivers a committed, believable performance as the protective mother, elevating the material above its generic roots. Cinematography is functional and TV-movie-ish with little visual distinction. The concept isn't fresh enough to score high on novelty—it's essentially a recombination of familiar thriller elements. The ending is serviceable and provides the expected cathartic resolution without any real surprises.