Product Description

Morgan (Dean Cain, TV's "Lois and Clark") is a suspended Chicago cop about to play a deadly game of cat and mouse with a professional thief, Jimmy Scalzetti (Eric Roberts, National Security). When Scalzetti and his team take the city's most exclusive mall, Morgan's wife is one of the captives. While Scalzetti attempts to locate the mall's vault, said to hold over $12 million in cash, Morgan must outthink the trigger-happy gunmen. With time running out, the hunt is about to turn deadly. Erika Eleniak (Under Siege) co-stars in this pulse-pounding thriller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33671 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2003-06-17
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Georgian, Chinese
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 91 minutes

Customer Reviews

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.

Not Bad, Just Ordinary Action Film
Though I gave only two stars, this made-for-TV film is not as bad as you expect from that rating. It gives always something to watch, but ... just look at this story, OK? A Chicago cop Lt. Morgan (Dean Cane) finds himself trapped in a shopping center where a group of theives try to steal the money. And his wife (Erika Eleniak, a girl jumping out from a giant cake in "Under Siege") is also trapped there; and the time is Christmas. Does that sound familiar? The situation is directly from one famous Bruce Willis action classic, and moreover, Morgan tries to get in touch with another cop outside the place to tell what is going on, by cell phone this time, not radio.

The hackneyed plot, however, is not to blame; actually, the film is mildly engaging. But the lack of new touch (and money perhap) in action scenes is felt too obviuosly. There is some original things about the film -- a hired Santa with a small bottle hidden in sleeve is one of them -- but they just pass by without being impressive nor effective.

The actors are not bad. Dean Cane plays a guy to whom we can easily relate, but more surprising is Eric Roberts (Julia's brother, well, just in case you forget), who should be given much better materials than here. His 'villain' betrays our expectation, showing more humane side than Allan Rickman's often thatrical mannerism. After all, he is an Oscar-nominee, and is really a good actor. It's just people forgot about that. A shame.

Not bad as you may imagine, and above average as made-for-TV film, "Breakaway" is good for a rainy day afternoon. Excuse me for giving rather unkind review, though, because I expect more from these two actors, who could do better.

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.