Second Take is an occasional feature about movies currently in theaters.
Abi Damaris Corbin's fact-based "Breaking" pretty much works as a non-heist movie. It has some of the trappings of the bank-robbery thriller, only its protagonist, former Marine Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) isn't interested in looting the bank's money at all. Instead, when he walks into an Atlanta-area branch of Wells Fargo one morning, claiming he has a bomb, what he's actually after is a platform to air his grievances with the VA, the byzantine government agency that withheld his benefit check based on a clerical error (the film's original title, "892," was the actual amount of the withheld check, the only money he was demanding).
At the beginning of the film, we meet Brown-Easley, a decorated veteran with severe PTSD since being honorably discharged, living near the poverty line, and on his way to becoming homeless. Separated from his wife, Cassandra (Olivia Washington), and the couple's young daughter, Kiah (London Covington), he has little recourse when his disability check is lost in a sea of bureaucracy. Despite his best efforts to track down the problem and rectify it through the normal channels, he is continually rebuffed and misdirected until, as the new title suggests, he reaches the end of his rope.
Pushed well past the breaking point, he calmly enters the bank, and respectfully informs the pair of bank managers, Estel (Nicole Beharie) and Rosa (Selenis Leyva), he is carrying a bomb in his bag. He encourages them to call "everyone," including the police, the fire department, and the media, giving him as much opportunity to express himself publicly as possible.
From the start, it's clear he's a different sort of cat. Unerringly polite (everyone is "sir," or "ma'am"), and conscientious (at one point, after he takes the tellers hostage, he fields a call from a customer, and writes down their information to give to an appropriate bank employee after he's finished), he's also completely aware this action will result in his death at the hands of police, a point he makes more than once to the lead police negotiator (the late Michael Kenneth Williams, in his last role), working hard to diffuse the situation.
The film's air of menace is well-crafted by Corbin and her team, dragging out the tension as Brown-Easley makes his case, both to the police, and to the media, via a phone call to local news producer Lisa Larson (Connie Britton). The end result, while expected, still comes shockingly fast, leaving a bevy of unanswered questions Corbin rightly has no interest in answering.