This movie is not Dog Day Afternoon but it is an honourable follower in its footsteps.

| Apr 3, 2023

Abi Damaris Corbin gently hints at how common factors such as bureaucratic inefficiency, institutional racism and the US’s culture of violence all share responsibility for what unfolds.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 30, 2023

The performances by Beharie, Williams, and especially Boyega ultimately save the film.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 1, 2022

In an intense thriller, John Boyega shifts from reflection to rage.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 30, 2022

Boyega more than holds his own here, seeming older than he is, more worn-down. The film supplies him the necessary details, but Boyega takes them and runs with the role.

| Aug 29, 2022

The film is a tense, slow-burn thriller and with a heavy, somber tone appropriate for a social justice drama, but there are times when its pace sags and it can’t sustain the tension.

| Original Score: 2.5 | Aug 28, 2022

It's a different tone from John Boyega than we have seen before. He gets to show a really wide range of emotions here.

| Aug 26, 2022

[Boyega is] immensely watchable in the fact-based story of Brian Brown-Easley, a Marine veteran in dire straits who held up a Georgia bank in 2017, even when the material here doesn't always rise to meet him.

| Original Score: B | Aug 26, 2022

An incredible, humanizing lead performance from John Boyega.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 26, 2022

Breaking isn't pulse-racing in its execution, and it unfolds more like a stage play than a riveting heist thriller. Its drama comes not from where it's headed but the exasperation of Boyega's performance...

| Original Score: B | Aug 25, 2022

It’s solid, from top to bottom.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 25, 2022

It depicts in stomach-churning detail how the contemporary militarization of law enforcement creates an atmosphere in which violence is near inevitable. This conscientious attention balances out the movie’s occasional lapses into sentimentality.

| Aug 25, 2022

Strong turns from Boyega and Williams anchor a tense, rueful drama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 25, 2022

Boyega is electrifying, burrowing into the complexity of a shattered man who’s been ground up by an inhumane bureaucratic system.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 24, 2022

Breaking’s narrative propulsion still lags, even with a full-formed Dog Day Afternoon-adjacent ecosystem to explore.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 24, 2022

By the time Breaking creeps to its bloody climax, the movie has only made a thin sketch of its protagonist despite Boyega’s obvious dedication. Everything driving Corbin’s film is to be lauded, yet Breaking feels oddly lacking in drive.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 24, 2022

From the trailer, I expected to like it a lot more than I did, but it doesn't do Brown-Easley's story the justice it deserves.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 24, 2022

The lack of context and focus make “Breaking” feel unmoored. It also doesn’t need to be some sort of thrill ride — but a deeper, grittier dive into its protagonist might have helped the film connect.

| Aug 24, 2022

The film’s unrelenting high pitch, paradoxically, does not intensify or sharpen the sense of drama but seems to have the opposite effect.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 23, 2022

Despite... challenges and drawbacks, “Breaking” holds our attention throughout, thanks to strong performances in the key roles.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2022