Movie Review: Breaking and Entering

(andPOP) - "Breaking and Entering" is not a movie to go see if you're looking for an easy escape from the world.

It takes a lot of concentration, as well as the ability to look past the fact that Jude Law may not be stretching his acting chops as far as he could be.

The film stars Law as Will Francis, an architect who is out to revitalize a criminalized part of downtown London when his office keeps getting robbed, meaning all of his brand new Macs, including his laptop that has his "whole life" on it, go missing. The robberies are committed by a young Muslim boy, Miro (Rafi Gavron), who swings from the roofs of buildings almost as if he is Tarzan.

Will catches him in the act and follows him home, to see he is being raised by a single mother, Amira (Juliette Binnoche); the two are refugees from Bosnia. To complicate things, Will's girlfriend's daughter, Oana (Vera Farmiga), is having problems with her autism being out of control, and his relationship with his girlfriend, Liv (Robin Wright Penn), is deteriorating.

Instead of fixing it, Will decides to take charity on the poor Amira by giving her clothes of his to mend, and eventually the two fall into an affair.

Like I said, the plot is not an easy one. Law is good in the role, but better before the affair on Liv begins. Considering Law's real-life cheating escapades, one cannot help but wonder just how difficult this role was for Law. Wright Penn provides a great performance, but because the centre of the movie is featured on Will and the two refugees, it is hard to feel anything for her.

Binnoche steals the film with an excellent performance. She brings charm and elegance to the role of the poor single mother who was widowed in the Bosnian war, and makes you which she did more movies more often.

The film has too many plotlines though. It seems like instead of one problem facing one character, each character has at least a problem of their own, which is just too difficult for the viewer to follow and keep track of what's wrong with who and why.

Another problem due to all of the plotlines is the fact that the viewer never has a chance to feel empathy for one character, because as soon as you do begin sympathizing with one storyline, another problem crops up with another character.

The film is also very lengthy, coming in at well over two hours. A lot of the time is due to the fact that there are so many problems; by eliminating just one of them, the runtime could have been cut down.

Overall, the film brings up interesting issues, but never digs deep enough to shed a light to any of them, which is ultimately the film's biggest downfall.

"Breaking and Entering" opens in limited release today, so don't fret if it doesn't open in your city; it's probably a better film to rent than to go see.