Ernie Mullins is New York's 61-year-old-pro safecracker, who is operating now in Portland, Oregon. Mike, is the "nosy, amiable kid" that Ernie takes on as his lookout and apprentice after they encounter each other. The two engage in a few heists together, such as one involving a supermarket and a friendly dog and a Fourth of July robbery of an amusement park during a fireworks show. Ernie is content to live in a tract homeon the fringe of the city, but Mike can't resist using his newfound money for material items, and his firing from the mechanic shop only serves to drive a wedge between the two. Ernie maintains a steady, paying relationship with a prostitute, Delphine, who fixes Mike up with her apprentice, Carrie. Their relationship does not last long, however, as Mike's desire for her to not need to use her body for money lead her to leave him. The film also features a pair of retired crooks, Ernie's card-playing pals, Johnny and Shoes, and a pair of adversarial lawyers. Mike's newfound wealth perks the suspicions of the authorities, and he has to try to not turn in Ernie in order to get a lighter sentence. Instead, he admits to his crimes alongside ones that Ernie did, which garners him a nine year sentence but keeps his friendship with Ernie intact.
The film was shot in Portland, Oregon. Forsyth envisioned John Mahoney for the lead role, but Act III Productions wanted a higher profile name. Jack Nicholson and Paul Newman were each offered the role, but declined. Prompted to have a star, Reynolds was eventually asked to do the film. It was Reynolds' first character role. "I've spent an entire career... making the characters me," he said." This is the first time I've done it the other way around." Reynolds worked for SAG scale because he was an admirer of the script and of Forsyth. John Sayles normally directed his own scripts but did not do this one because he did not feel he had the sense of humor to bring it off. Forsyth too, normally directed his own scripts, but took on Breaking In in an attempt to make contact with a larger mainstream audience:
I can't get away with making $6- or $7-million movies with the kind of audience that my past movies have reached. I've just got to find an audience-or retreat. And I'm quite happy to retreat, I'm happy to go back to Scotland and make smaller movies"-e.g., "Gregory's Girl." "But at the same time, `Breaking In' seemed a comfortable experiment for me. Because although I say I'm trying to reach that audience or see how far that audience is from me, I don't think I'm going that far to get them.... You could read very innocently as a kind of nice caper with nice characters. But underneath that there is so much compromise and so much duplicity and so much blackmail going on that it seemed to have lots of levels I could work on.
He later described it as "an awkward little movie. It’s not an American film and it’s not a European film; it’s ungraspable what it is."
Reception
Box office
The film was not a commercial success. It opened in 400 theaters at #12 in its opening weekend with $679,200, but returned less than $2 million in total box office receipts.
Critical response
Critically, the feedback is positive. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 89% basedon reviews from 9 critics. Roger Ebert called the film "a well-written, well-directed picture. Reynolds has a comfortable screen presence and can act…he shows the warmth and quirkiness that made him fun to watch in the first place."
