Breaking pulls off a bait-and-switch exemplified by the title’s change from 892, as it was called when it premiered via film festivals many months ago, to its current moniker. Breaking sounds more exciting, if a touch generic, whereas 892 only made sense if one knew something specific about the film — it represents the amount of money owed to veteran Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) by Veterans Affairs. The loss of that money leads the former Marine to hold up a bank. But Breaking isn’t really a genre movie, much less an action movie. It tries to get in tune with the rhythm of hopeless despair, capturing that feeling in its style.
The film opens with Brian walking through inhospitable Atlanta streets on his way to a Wells Fargo branch. He proceeds to hand a teller a note claiming to have a bomb, although he doesn’t want to rob the bank — he just wants a chance to speak with the VA and argue a case for receiving the money. Bank manager Estel (Nicole Beharie) sees what’s going on and orders all the customers escorted out, and Brian demands to speak with police. Due to the VA’s missing disability payment, he’s about to be forced out of a hotel onto the streets. Despite working two jobs, he doesn’t have the income to get by. The missing check seems to be a bureaucratic mistake, but Brian can’t get the VA’s attention any other way. Hostage negotiator Eli Bernard (the late Michael K. Williams in his final role) speaks with Brian, hoping to de-escalate.
Doug Emmett’s cinematography is muted, stripping its colors down to gray, blue and brown. In fact, Brian’s clothing matches the glumly painted interiors of the bank. But director Abi Damaris Corbin relies too much on style as proof of the film’s serious convictions, particularly since this monochrome look isn’t particularly original. While it certainly has good intentions, Breaking feels scared that anyone could mistake it for a thriller. At best, it subverts such narratives in the interest of making something more realistic.
Breaking is set in 2017 and based on a real event that took place that year, but its framing conveys a pandemic-era loneliness. After the quick exit of the bank’s patrons, Brian is left inside with only two other people. Corbin doesn’t show them in the same shot, instead cutting between images of isolated people in institutional spaces. Only the police have the privilege of sharing a two-shot.
The film’s casting is impeccable. Brian’s emotions seem all the more urgent due to the restraint of Boyega’s performance. The Star Wars and Attack the Block actor brings out this soft-spoken man’s need to show his rage over not having a shot at improving his life. Estel is put in the bind of sympathizing with him while still feeling endangered by his hold-up. Breaking presents a tragedy in which most participants, even Brian, enter with good intentions — Estel and Eli genuinely want him to avoid becoming another corpse.
Breaking is a tight narrative that could be staged as a play, but even so, the film includes several half-hearted attempts to open things up. The demands of a feature-length narrative include an incorporation of the media’s response to Brian’s hold-up, but threads like these are clearly secondary. Brian’s interaction with a news producer (Nashville’s own Connie Britton) doesn’t reveal anything about the way the media exploits this kind of story. Although the police receive more screen time, even Eli remains underdeveloped.
By zooming in so closely on Brian, Breaking misses a bigger picture, taking a systemic problem and reducing it to a character study. The film’s sympathy for veterans is unmistakable, but Brian’s desperation is used as a synecdoche of their experience. Breaking does a better job of suggesting how racism pushes Brian toward a violent conclusion without fully spelling it out. All the main characters are people of color, three of them Black, but they’re pressed into service for larger institutions that can’t respect the dilemma of a man like Brian. Even if they’re capable of doing so as individuals, their sincerity about bringing the robbery to a peaceful end can go only so far.
Breaking tries its best to honor the real man whose experience it’s based upon. Unfortunately, Breaking shows the difficulty of transforming life into a narrative similar to earlier fiction — by the end of the ’70s, stories about damaged veterans lashing out had already become a trope. There’s a lot here, but by its conclusion the film itself feels as trapped as its characters.
