Breakaway (2002)

Mall Robbed, news at 11

This is a decent made for TV action movie. It takes lessons from Willis and Schwarzenegger on how to shoot enormous rounds of bullets, make lots of explosions, and kill bad guys in a number of ways. Dean Cain as the off duty suspended cop and Eric Roberts as the level headed leader of the heist team. The robbers are after a large amount of money transferred to the bank from the mall on Christmas Eve. All the actors are reasonably good at their roles. The acting is above par for most B actioners and the story is plausible and the characters lines are done well enough you don't feel abused with giving it the time to watch. For a price below ten dollars it will make a nice inexpensive gift for most men. The DVD is fair quality but does not include extras. January 3, 2008

Not good, but tries

In this movie (produced for cable network TBS, when it was still a superstation), Dean Cain stars as a Chicago cop who accidentally
kills a Chinese businessman, and gets suspended. But, however,
a team of robbers who are trying to rob money from a mall, puts
Cain back into the game, taking his wife (Erika Eleniak), another
mom and her two kids hostage, before Christmas nears. Has a few
lessons in between, but not so good as we thought it would be.

You film buffs should know:

There is a poster for "The One" (Sony, who distributed this,
owns the producer of that film). December 14, 2006

Die Hard Knockoff

While I must admit that I love Dean Cain and miss Lois and Clark desprately, this movie was a bit unoriginal. Think about it:
1)"Rouge-ish" cop
2)wife is a hostage
3)crooks after millions of dollars in a high tech safe
4)Christmas time
5)"rouge-ish" cop runs around, avoiding bad guys but picking them off, single handedly

Tell me that doesn't scream John McClain. October 6, 2005

LAST MINUTE SHOPPERS

If you have been dying to see a ritzy mall decimated, blown up, shattered, broken, etc., then BREAKAWAY (where in the world did the title come from?) is your cup of egg nog. A lot of noisy, really noisy, action scenes fill the screen, and being in a mall, just think of the things you get to blow up or shatter: store windows, tvs, mannequins, mirrors, etc., etc. And it's even better because it's on Christmas Eve in Chicago. A man whose son is dying of leukemia wants to steal about 10 million dollars so he can get his son the 250,000 operation. What does this kindly father plan to do with the left over money? Open a clinic? The movie is implausible as all heck, but it's done with such fervor and kinetic energy, you find yourself getting caught up in it, knowing how implausible it is. Dean Cain seems to be having a good time in his Bruce Willis impersonation and Erika Eleniak is lovely to look at and is certainly improving as an actress. Eric Roberts fills the thief's shoes nicely, but one has to ask if he will ever make a "real" movie ever again; he seems to get stuck in these made for tv or straight to video thrillers. Another annoying aspect of the film is that being a tv movie, we get the commercial breaks, and the time between these segues is unusually long, even for a DVD.
I enjoyed my 90 minutes with this movie: it has a lot of action and Cain and Eleniak are sympathetic, but the drunken Santa was a misfire, and the ending was a little too extended, aside from the fact that it tried to make us feel sorry for Eric Roberts, despite the fact that several people got killed because of his actions and we won't even mention the destruction of property. But, heck, have a good time with it; you'll forget all about it the next morning. February 16, 2005

Good for a TV-movie.

This is a good movie, yet it does have a lot of DIE HARD type stuff in it. In the movie Dean Cain has to stop Eric Roberts from robbing a mall, but he's doing it to save his son. It has some good action sequences and a good ending. There really isn't much wrong with this movie. Watch it. October 19, 2003

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