Film review: Breaking In

Christian Slater (41, not one of the young folk) is the marquee name, but appealing every guy Bret Harrison from Reaper is the star of Fox's Breaking In. Set at a firm that vets high-tech security systems by, as the sign says, breaking into whatever they're supposed to protect; it's a have-cake, eat-it-too scenario that allows for the fun and excitement of illegal activity with none of the legal consequences, though truthfully, to judge by the first two episodes, the capers are more a condiment than a course.

Neither Harrison nor Slater, whose all-knowing Oz runs this outfit, have strayed far from their previous series. Slater's The Forgotten had him as the leader of a team of amateur cold-case investigators, and Harrison (character name: Cameron, a master hacker) begins Breaking In almost as a replay of Reaper, drafted, much against his will, out of a life of perpetual underachievement into one of dangerous adventure — though here is not the Devil, however, but only devilish.

In either case, a boy will become a man. Cameron's new workmates, each with a Mission: Impossible speciality, include safe-cracking Melanie (Odette Annable), immediately the object of his shy desire; fanboy Cash (Alphonso McAuley), who is practical; and Josh (Trevor Moore, from The Whitest Kids U'Know), a sort of chameleon (and the Dwight Schrute of the piece).

The pilot works a little hard — not one but two characters get catch-phrases, which happily evaporate by the second episode — but plenty of good things come out in the effort, and better things seem likely to come.