Breaking and Entering (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Menu Animation & Audio Audio Commentary-Director Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	113:59
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (69:20)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Anthony Minghella
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Jude Law Juliette Binoche Robin Wright Penn Martin Freeman Ray Winstone Vera Farmiga Rafi Gavron Poppy Rogers Mark Benton Juliet Stevenson Caroline Chikezie Rad Lazar Ed Westwick
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Karl Hyde Rick Smith Gabriel Yared

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Polish Czech Hungarian Hebrew Greek Bulgarian Russian Latvian Romanian Estonian	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Anthony Minghella is a wonderful filmmaker who creates films with excellent atmosphere, bursting with heartfelt emotions. The most famous example of his work, of course, is the multiple Academy Award winning The English Patient (which is one of my Top 5 favourite films). Since his debut film as a director in 1990, Truly Madly Deeply, Breaking & Entering is the first film which has been a completely original writing effort for him, as the others have been based on material which he turned into a screenplay. His portfolio also includes the wonderful The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain. This film is a more personal film than those with a smaller scope and perhaps slightly less compelling story. Having said that, I am surprised by its poor performance at the box office (less than $1 million in the US), especially considering the film's stellar cast.

    Breaking & Entering is essentially a relationship drama set against a backdrop of modern day London. The only recent film which I could think of it being something like is Closer although that film is a lot more angsty than this one. The story involves a successful architect, Will Francis (Jude Law) who has been awarded a major contact to redevelop one of the seedier parts of London around King's Cross. He works with a partner, Sandy Hoffman (Martin Freeman). Will, despite Sandy's reservations, decides to move their office into an old warehouse near the project. Shortly after their new computers are delivered, a gang of Eastern European gangsters arrange for their office to be broken into and the computers stolen. They send in a group of youths, led my a young Serbian boy from Bosnia, Miro (Rafi Gavron). Miro is a talented free runner (like the opening sequence to Casino Royale) but is not necessarily a complete criminal. He lives with his widowed mother, Amira (Juliette Binoche) in a small flat where she mends & alters clothes to make ends meet.

    Will is in a long term relationship with Liv (Robin Wright Penn). They have been living together for 10 years and Will has been wanting to marry her for some time. She has a 13 year old daughter, Bea (obviously not Will's) who is challenging due to what seems to be some sort of autism, which means she does not sleep much, collects batteries (usually from things which Will needs) and generally makes Will and Liv's relationship difficult. Will tries to treat her like his own daughter however a combination of his work and Liv's attitude about her daughter get in the way. The daughter is also a talented gymnast. Will feels that Liv should take a different approach to dealing with her daughter, which would help the issue, however, Liv seems stuck in her ways. This creates tension between them, causing Will to seek solace in other places. As the movie develops, Will's personal life and the after effects of the break-in collide is rather surprising ways. Ray Winstone also appears as Bruno Feller, an unorthodox detective from the local CID who is investigating the break-in.

    Whilst somewhat slow in pace, this film has excellent atmosphere and explores interesting topics in a powerful and thought-provoking way. It points out the distinctions is modern society between the haves and the have-nots, while also providing an interesting romantic relationship drama. The acting is universally excellent and there is some quirky humour to lighten the mood, although this is certainly a drama. The wonderful score by Gabriel Yared & Underworld certainly adds significantly to the atmosphere and emotions of the film.

    I would recommend this film for audiences who enjoy thoughtful dramas and certainly for fans of the director or stars.

Video

    The video quality is excellent.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced, which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was wonderfully clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise or grain of any description. The shadow detail was excellent.

    The film has a very naturalistic and subdued colour scheme which does not lend itself to great bursts of colour, however the colours present were well rendered..

    There were no noticeable artefacts.

    There are seemingly thousands of sets of subtitles on this disc. The film dialogue is subtitled English, English for the hearing impaired, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Hebrew, Greek, Bulgarian, Russian, Latvian, Romanian & Estonian. Many of these languages are also available as subtitles for the commentary. The English subtitle stream was required to get translations of a few lines of foreign language in the film.

    The layer change occurs at 69:20 and causes a quite obvious pause.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains five audio options (not including commentaries); an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384 Kb/s, a Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 surround soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s and the same in Czech, Hungarian and Russian. The slightly less than optimal bitrate for the English track is not a big issue in a film like this which is mostly dialogue and music focused.

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync. Some lines of dialogue where somewhat quiet and therefore a little hard to make out.

    The score of this film by Gabriel Yared & Underworld is very atmospheric and fairly minimalist. It adds significantly to the reflective tone of the film.

    The surround speakers were used mostly for atmosphere with very few obvious surround effects.

     The subwoofer was used sparingly.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    A small selection of extras are included.

Menu

    The menu design is simple but effective including scenes from the film and music.

Audio Commentary- Anthony Minghella (Writer/Director)

    A high quality and well-prepared commentary, in which Minghella discusses the origin of the idea for the movie, King's Cross itself, why he wanted to do this film, why he chose to go back to London as a setting and many other interesting topics. He is honest, thoughtful and interesting.

Lie, Cheat, Steal, Love : Making of Breaking & Entering (12:19)

    A promo-style making of which includes interviews with main cast and crew. Covers preparation, shooting, themes and the story.

Deleted Scenes (8:40)

    These six scenes include an optional director's commentary, which is more interesting than the scenes. Included are more romantic entanglements for Will and an extra unrelated burglary. Not Bad.

Theatrical Trailer (2:16)

    A regular ingredient for films which do not do well at the box office; a trailer which makes the film seem like something it is not. This trailer tries to make it look like a bunny-boiler style thriller.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• French 5.1 Soundtrack
• Spanish subtitles

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• The non-English language tracks included on Region 4
• The non-English subtitle tracks included on Region 4

    On this basis lets just call it a draw. This film is also available locally on Blu-ray. A review of this disc will appear shortly.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The disc has a decent selection of extras, featuring a quality commentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall