Review by Marty Mapes

Anthony Minghella is a master at texture and depth. Witness The English Patient, which married landscape, flesh, and memory. He does almost the same thing in Breaking & Entering, but with an urban landscape instead of a desert.

King's Cross is a blighted area of London, and Will (Jude Law) is an architect who has won a contract to redevelop it. For all the right reasons, Will and his partner (Martin Freeman) decide to move their office into King's Cross, against the advice of well-meaning friends. Sure enough, burglars break into their office twice within the first few minutes of screen time.

Superficially, the story is about Will playing cat-and-mouse with a young thief (Rafi Gavron) who participated in the break-ins. Emotionally, the story is about overcoming temptation. Will is tempted by many things, and he usually gives in. Thematically, the film is a tapestry of ideas about architecture, class, crime, poverty, prejudice, and responsibility, to name a half dozen.

By far, the best extra feature on this DVD is Anthony Minghella's audio commentary. He comes across as very smart, and not just because he has a British accent. All the complexity that makes Breaking & Entering so good was carefully planned. Minghella explains it without sounding too pedantic. He also throws in some interesting tidbits, such as the meaning of the fox, or his contest with Martin Scorsese over the casting of Vera Farmiga. Toward the end of the movie, the commentary starts to sound a little more like a drone, but Minghella is still better than many when it comes to talking about his own movie.

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