Breakdown
Poster
Year: 1997
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Review:
With a B-movie look, this film seemed tiny alongside Volcano, The Fifth Element and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, all released the same year - yet it kept up a level of excitement with only few special effects and minimal script and plot.
Well off Boston couple, Jeff (Kurt Russell) and Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) are driving across-country to a new life in San Diego. In a burning stretch of the John Ford desert, they have a near-collision with a hostile pickup truck driver. A few miles down the road their engine cuts out - a passing trucker, Red, (JT Walsh) offers to give them a ride to the next diner for help. Amy goes, while Jeff stays with the car - but no-one comes back to help him. That all happens in the first 20 minutes.
Eventually Jeff catches Red - Red swears he's never met him, doesn't know what he's talking about - that he's never seen his wife.
The film then turns into a desperate search, recalling thrillers like Hitchcock's Pyscho, and Spielberg's Duel - face off's with locals follow, as in Deliverance.
It becomes a tense survival drama - the film holds all the way through its' short 93 minute running time, as Russell’s middle class husband morphs into action man.
Russell’s nearly believable performance - all confusion and sweat, plays in contrast to the late, Walsh’s cool but menacing silver-eyed villain. This was the his last film to be released in his lifetime.
Breakdown climaxes in a high energy and over the top car and truck chase - to this viewer it looks more real than anything from the Fast and Furious films - Russell clinging to the underneath of speeding truck for hours and hours, tailing his wife's possible killers is a real highlight.
“It could happen to you,” says the film’s poster - that doesn't seem likely but it's an excellent tag line for this film.
Breakdown is a B-movie that knows its size and budget limitations and works within it. Mostow went on to bigger things, directing the 2000 submarine drama, U-571 and then 2003’s Terminator 3.
Nobody talks about Breakdown much these days, but some film fans seem to have a recollection of it. "Oh yeah, I remember that! I liked that one a lot." That was my reaction when I saw the poster again.
It was filmed on location in Sacramento, California; Victorville, California; Pyramid Lake; Moab, Utah; Sedona, Arizona; and the Tasmanian Midlands Highway. It topped the US box office for just a week in May holding off Austin Powers. It grossed $50m gross on a $36m budget: not exactly a smash - but probably an expected outcome for a simple effects-free thrill ride.
Trailer
Rating
**Number of SUBs out of 10 - 7
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Thanks for reading my review, always up for comments and a chat about films and TV.
