[In the following review of Breaking In, Kauffmann contends that Sayles fails to develop the story sufficiently, resulting in a film that is flat and disappointing.]

John Sayles gets fertile ideas for screenplays, but they never grow sufficiently. The Brother from Another Planet, Matewan, Eight Men Out, to name a few, all had interesting subjects, and all got thinner as they went along. Sayles as screenwriter is something like an actor who does a terrific first reading of a role, then doesn't develop much after that.

Once again he has bobbled a good idea. Breaking In (Samuel Goldwyn) is not a particularly novel subject, but it begins promisingly—and then leads to very little. Kenneth Burke says somewhere that form is the arousal and satisfaction of expectation. Sayles once again supplies the first requirement, overlooks the second, and ends up formless.

The setting is Portland, Oregon, looking very fresh in Michael Coulter's camera. A 61-year-old burglar, Burt Reynolds (lying upward about his age), is on a job in someone's home when a young housebreaker surprises Reynolds and himself by coming upon Reynolds at work on a wall safe. The young man, Casey Siemaszko, is not a burglar: he is by profession an auto mechanic. He just likes to break into empty houses, help himself to food, watch TV, and luxuriate. Reynolds, amused and intrigued, takes him on as an apprentice, and they prosper.

This is really all that happens in the course of the film, except that at the end Siemaszko is nabbed on a job while Reynolds gets away. The latter greases the right people so that the young man will be well treated in prison. After visiting him, Reynolds murmurs to himself as he leaves, “Poor kid,” while Siemaszko murmurs, “Poor old guy” as he returns to his cell. Reynolds is on his way and rich, and the young man, after his five-year stay, will be on his way and rich, too. What has happened to either of them in the film in character growth or even in cumulative action? Nothing.

The narrative—chronicle, rather—is padded with inserts, such as a poem about testicles that a prostitute reads to Siemaszko in bed. The story is brusquely shunted around by the author. Reynolds warns his apprentice not to make himself conspicuous, yet after the young man gets some money, he buys a Cadillac, goes around to the garage where he once worked to offer his pals a ride, rents an expensive apartment, and puts down the first payment in cash from a thick wad of bills. The fellow who was bright enough to attract Reynolds would have been too bright to do these things. His actions are string-pullings by Sayles to complicate matters.

The author's quick-fizzling brightness is patent in a sequence about a supermarket robbery. The two burglars come down through a hole they have made in the roof and find a huge dog sitting there observing them curiously. Put aside the question of why a watchdog—which presumably it is—makes no sound: Sayles doesn't really use his comic idea. Any professional comedy writer would have made the dog's friendly presence build to a payoff of some kind. Sayles just has the dog pad around after the pair until they leave. It's amateurish.

The ultimate flatness of this film, modestly entertaining though it is throughout, wouldn't matter much if it had not been directed by Bill Forsyth. This is the first time that Forsyth has directed someone else's script. Up to now the scripts have either been his own—in such endearing films as Gregory's Girl and Comfort and Joy, which were set in his native Scotland—or his own adaptation—his superb film of Marilynne Robinson's superb novel, Housekeeping, set in America.

Forsyth's chief success is with Reynolds. The star is not much different here, but he's himself even more fully, at complete and engaging ease. His toupee is slightly grayed, he walks with a limp that is never explained. (This is a good touch. The film lets us assume it's the result of some misadventure on a job.) Aging becomes Reynolds: it underscores his poise, his nonchalance about stardom.

The young actor is a mistake—Forsyth's or someone's. Siemaszko has the features of an oyster and not much more talent. The best that can be said about him is that he is generic. He validly represents the age and status that are said to be his.

I hope that in the future Forsyth makes films only from his own screenplays. Here or in Scotland.