Review of Breathless (2012) by Anna C — 10 Nov 2012

Women with idle time on their hands cause nothing but trouble. Lorna is a typical housewife. She hates her husband, cleans the house (which is a trailer in the desert) and drinks as much alcohol to rid herself of her dull life. Her friend Tiny is the pretty blonde who can be easily distracted and easily led if you talk her into doing things the right way.

One day Lorna reads something in the paper about the great Red County robbery and suspects her husband Dale for pulling it off. Dale has been prone to robbing banks in the past and it makes her suspicious since his boots have red clay on them. Red County is best known for their clay and Dale's boots are covered with the stuff.

In times of distress, she calls onto her friend Tiny. Tiny comes over to interrogate Dale, with Lorna by her side, for information about the whereabouts of the money. Dale doesn't exactly say where it is only that it's hinted it's somewhere in the trailer. Then he gets his head accidentally blown off by Lorna swinging the gun around. What a butterfingers. Now the two girls are stuck with a dead body and to make matters worse the sheriff shows up. Lorna tells him that if he wants into her home than he needs to get a warrant. He does exactly that which gives the girls some thinking time to get rid of Dale's body.

It becomes very obvious that the best way to get rid of a dead body is to chop them up. How they get rid of the body is really funny in a gruesome way. After chopping Dale to pieces, they use certain household appliances to get rid of the parts. Like a blender, garbage disposal and other cleaning appliances that you would normally use to clean up a kitchen or bathroom. When all else fails, they burn the body in the bathtub. That outta do it!

However to make matters worse a private investigator shows up to unearth some hidden truths. I would go into explaining that, but it would spoil the whole plot. This darkly comedic flick has the feel of a stage play. It's set entirely in that trailer and the script is very literal like a book or play. The cast is a very small group of Gina Gershon and Kelli Giddish. Also the pot belly trio of Kilmer, Duvall and Liotta do a nice redneck job.

Overall, This film is like an onion. A small onion because the layers are not that big except to further the plot. The twist wasn't too surprising, but effective enough to make it fun.