Review of Breakdown (1997) by Nikki M — 14 Feb 2009

A good collection of thrillers tend to draw a lot of their tension from their location. Trapping your characters in a confined space or locale is a sure fire way of ramping up the suspense. Breakdown goes solidly in the opposite direction, using a limitless supply of open road and desert to fulfill the required tension quota.

Kurt Russell and wife find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere and at the mercy of vehicular pirates.Russell plays it very convincingly as he desperately searches for his wife and the vastness of the area around him and how small he is in comparison. The bad guys are the usual array of low lives though an interesting family aspect to them in thrown in towards the end.

Breakdown really works well because it constantly keeps the viewer engaged and just as perplexed as Russell as to what had befallen him, we really feel his futile search which seems to lead him round in circles.

The climax threatens to go a little OTT and becomes more of a guns and car chase movie which slightly dampens and betrays the rest of the movie but still deals out some thrills in it's own way.

A clever and yet undemanding film, Breakdown rarely stalls.