In Breaking, Lance Corporal Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) returns from Kuwait and Iraq to financial hardship and missing disability checks from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Desperate to keep his daughter from destitution (and to raise the alarm about massive problems for warfighters coming home to broken lives), Brown-Easley takes a group of people hostage in a Wells Fargo bank.
It’s a true story, and the trailer for writer/director Abi Damaris Corbin’s take is thrilling. Gorgeous and intense, Boyega is giving off unmistakable Denzel vibes while thoroughly making it his own thing. If Boyega weren’t a movie star before, this seals the deal. The film also features Michael K. Williams in what will be one of his final released roles following his death in 2021 (a Western called Surrounded is complete but hasn’t found distribution yet), playing a sympathetic cop negotiating with Brown-Easley on the scene. Connie Britton, Jeffrey Donovan, and Orange is the New Black‘s Selenis Leyva round out the cast with Nicole Beharie (Miss Juneteenth) looking at a breakout part as a bank manager trapped with a profoundly polite bank robber.
The film hit Sundance hard, with the cast walking away with the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Now it will hit theaters near us August 26th.
