Review of Brake (2012) by Daniel R — 27 Sep 2012

A poor man's Buried, but not without its merits. This is about a secret service agent (Stephen Dorff), locked in the trunk of a car, with only a CB radio and a repeatedly ticking-down-to-zero digital clock, all the while a terrorist plot unfolds outside the vehicle.

It's damn near impossible not to compare this to Buried; they're both one-man show bottle movies where the main character is stuck in a highly confined space with limited resources. The thing that holds this back from being as high quality as Buried is the competency; there was a lot of quality camera work that went with the aforementioned, while here, there's less creativity, and it's much more straightforward.

I am, admittedly, a sucker for this type of movie, and I will say that I was engaged all the way through this. Stephen Dorff does a good job, being the only real actor in this, and the always-present countdown clock helps to keep the pacing palpable.

The biggest problem I had with this is the ending; I called the initial ending pretty early on, and the extra twist just annoyed me unnecessarily. If you can suspend your disbelief, there are some good things to be taken away from this, and you should watch this if you are a fan of the bottle movie.