IN AGAIN, OUT AGAIN...

BREAKING IN, directed by James McTeigh,, starring Gabrielle Union as Shaun Russell.

BAD SAMARITAN, directed by Dean Devlin, starring David Tennant as Cale Erendreich and Robert Sheehan as Sean Falco.

Never go to the party without checking out the exit. Never enter the front door unless you know the back door. Consider the houses in two new films, BREAKING IN and BAD SAMARITAN. Viewed at random, they nonetheless display remarkable similarities: No sooner do the characters go inside, then they have to go outside. Immediately. But then, darned if everybody doesn’t find themselves inside again. Only to escape outside again. And so it goes, like a continuing point-counterpoint, in again, out again...

In BREAKING IN, Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union), along with her two children, inspect the dwelling of her recently deceased father. It’s quite a house, heavily fortified and lavished with all manner of technological gadgetry, including room monitors and motion-control sensors. There is a secret inside: There’s a safe somewhere with a cool million secreted away. And there’s also a gang of four thieves caught in the act of searching for the swag. The gang grabs the kids and keeps them inside, while mother Shaun is trapped outside, looking in. It’s not long before she finds herself inside while the kids are now outside. And the bad guys, well, they’re in and out, reversing the polarities. And so it goes, over and over.

I’ll stop there while I note that THE BAD SAMARITAN also features an amazing house to go in and out of, full of high-tech whiz-bangs, including monitoring devices and motion sensors. It too hides a secret: In this case, it’s a maniacal serial killer, Cale Erendreich (David Tennant) and the female captive he keeps chained in a torture room. Amateur burglar Sean Falco—yes, there’s a “Sean/Shaun” in both movies!—breaks into this house, discovers the shackled victim and, yes—you guessed it—hastily escapes to call the cops. Sean’s break-in is discovered by Erendreich, who turns the tables and breaks into Sean’s own house. Meanwhile, the cops enter Erendreich’s house and find—nothing. So now they leave. You can bet they’ll be back. Meanwhile, our “bad” Samaritan in desperation goes to the FBI. Maybe they’ll listen. . .

Okay, so where are we with these films? In or out?

IN BREAKING IN Shaun and her two kids manage to turn the tables on the bad guys. It’s cat-and-mouse, all the way, creeping through the corridors and rooms inside and stalking the thieves from the roof outside. Shaun may be “just a Mom,” as she declares to them, but she’s damned resourceful and manages to leave a trail of broken bodies behind, some in and some out of the house. It’s all about family.

In BAD SAMARITAN, our young hero is on his own. Once again, he’s inside Erendreich’s house, but he discovers the killer is one step ahead of him and has set a timer to blow everything to smithereens. So, he blasts his way out of the garage before the whole edifice explodes in a blaze of glory. Undaunted, he tracks the killer out to the country where—you guessed it—the killer has upped the ante and keeps another house. Inside is the killer’s victim, imprisoned in a cell. Before our hero can break in, he’s caught and bludgeoned with a shovel. Now we’re outside. Before the killer can dispatch the captive girl, who’s been shoved inside a lime-filled hole, the tables are turned, the girl crawls out of the hole, and the killer is overwhelmed. In a final stroke, they take his body back inside the house, tie him up, and leave him for the arriving FBI.

In a crucial distinction between these two films, I should note that BREAKING IN takes itself very seriously (unless you greet with some bemusement the ingenious plotting that turns everything inside out). BAD SAMARITAN, by contrast, never quite takes itself seriously. It is a weirdly funny film, mixing some terrific shock effects with a few deft, deadpan exchanges among the characters. In sum, we learn from both films that it’s best to plot an escape for every entrance in life. If that’s the best I can say for both experiences, then,... COUNT ME IN!