Breaking

In 2017, Iraq war veteran Brian Brown-Easley, desperate to receive an overdue welfare payment, entered an Atlanta bank carrying what he said was a bomb. After politely ushering out the other customers, he took two women cashiers hostage, and events soon spiralled into a national media frenzy. John Boyega plays Brown-Easley in this powerful dramatisation of events, which finds him up against a plainly racist and trigger-happy local police force, tempered only by the arrival of the lead negotiator, a fellow ex-marine (Michael K Williams). With her impressive feature debut, director Abi Damaris Corbin makes skilful use of flashbacks to recount Brown-Easley's shoddy treatment by authorities, inducing our sympathies as the tension continues to build. Boyega gives a compelling performance in the lead, commanding our attention all the way up to what we already know will be a tragic ending.