Breaking In (Dir. James McTeigue, 1h 28 m)

Women in action movies, and in particular female-fronted action movies are a growing if un-even breed-for every dozen films that use the "strong independent woman" thing to little or no effect once the third act gets going, there's one film where the female heroine is just as tough, unstoppable and seemingly invincible as their male counterparts. Last year's Atomic Blonde, despite its questionable sexual politics, and its overreliance on 80s nostaliga, is one, and this year's Annihilation another. Breaking In comes close, but falls short. This is not to say it's a bad film-it's perfectly servicable, if as by-the-numbers as one can have, whilst occasionally adding a fresh detail here and there.

Pitting a mother, and surprisingly for a genre that still struggles to cast female actors full-stop, an Afro-American mother against a mottley gang of home-invaders, who threaten to harm her children if her late father's safe, containing $4 million is not opened, it's an odd mess of a film-in places excellent, in others painfully stereotypical. For her part, Gabrielle Union's heroine is both tough and motherly-in the opening scenes, the film develops the relationship between her and her children in good, if overly broad brushstrokes, whilst, once the film launches itself into its home invasion premise, she shifts slowly but surely into a tough, and surprisingly dangerous woman, slowly but surely turning the tables on the four invaders. Even if this film does not do well at the box office, it does at least  Her children meanwhile, are likable and resourceful and it is refreshing that the film never dips into stereotypes on their side.

This is more than can be said of the rest of the film, with four fairly dull stereotypes going about the business of trashing the house, threatening our protagonist and her children. These range from a Mexican stereotype to a conspiracy theorist to an actor i've not seen since he was Bella Swann's father in Twilight. Needless to say they're dull, their bickering badinage grows thin quickly, (even thinner than their characterisation), and frankly, when they start finally murdering each other, it's a blessed relief.  The worst by far is the quartet's heavily tattooed and predatory Latino, a knife-wielding psychopath that merrily derails their plans and eventually winds up usurping the role of chief antagonist from his boss.

That said, when poorly characterised people aren't speaking lines we've heard many times before, this is a remarkably taut and tense film, in which both the location, a smart, gadget heavy house, and the film's electronic score, play a notable part; it's actually riveting, with the colour pallet being reduced for a good chunk of the film to muted red. Sadly, it's too little on which to hang the flesh of the film-its shortness, its lack of characters outside of phoned-in story beats we've seen dozens of time before, and despite its progressive protagonist, this is a film that ticks every other box with little to no imagination

Rating: Neutral