Breaking and Entering (2006)

This film was one of the gala showings at the recent Film Festival, but I caught up with it at a preview showing before its general release this week.  The ads scream that Jude Law gives the performance of his career, but don't you believe it; he comes across as vacuous and unsympathetic as usual.  He plays an architect working on the redevelopment of the Kings Cross area with swish offices in the area which act as a magnet for a bunch of Serbian thieves who keep stealing all his high-tech gear.  He is in a long-term relationship with half-Swedish Robin Wright Penn who won't marry him and who devotes most of her time to her difficult autistic 13-year daughter.  Staking out his office, he spots the young thief whose acrobatic skills afford entry for the gang, follows him home, and soon is involved emotionally and physically with the boy's Bosnian mother, played by Juliette Binoche.  While both female leads are very good indeed, Law does not really shine in their reflected light.  This was his third project with writer-director Anthony Minghella who must see something in him that I am missing; however I must also blame Minghella for the poor pacing and the rather contrived plot which attempts to provide some sort of redemption for all of the main characters and which totally stretches belief.