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Breakdown (1997) -
This lean and mean late '90s thriller has been hanging around my watchlist probably since it came out and I'm very glad I finally got around to seeing it. Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan are Jeff and Amy Taylor, a married couple who are relocating from New England to the opposite corner of the U.S. The titular event occurs in a remote part of the Southwest, and after a perhaps too kind trucker, Red (J.T. Walsh), stops and assists, Amy goes with him to wait it out at a diner. When Jeff goes to meet Amy, he finds no trace of her, and what follows doesn't match the thrills of semi-truck-based action of The Road Warrior, but it comes pretty close.
If I were only allowed to review this movie with once sentence, I would say that if Alfred Hitchcock made a thriller set on the open roads of the American Southwest, it might have resembled this movie. For one, Jeff Taylor exemplifies an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. From Escape from New York to Miracle, I'm used to seeing Kurt Russell play characters who are expected to take charge of every situation, and while his outfit suggesting he starts every conversation with "did you see the game last night" helps, he takes very well to the role of man whose every move seems like he's shooting in the dark. All the same, the movie would not work - or at least not as well - if it weren't for J.T. Walsh, whose steely gaze and talent for exuding sleaze made me loathe and love Red equally, not to mention lament the actor's early passing. M.C. Gainey is also a welcome sight as someone who I would be scared to death to cut off in traffic. Then again, it may be the stunt team who deserve all the credit, especially when you consider the scene where Jeff hangs on to the undercarriage of a trailer as the truck towing it barrels down a highway. Whoever the MVP may be, it ends up being a movie that remains exciting and suspenseful to the very end that is bound to make you wonder how far you would go and how much outside your comfort zone you would venture for your loved ones. While it may not be the deepest or rich in surprises as others in its genre, it proves that a movie does not need to be either to be great.
This lean and mean late '90s thriller has been hanging around my watchlist probably since it came out and I'm very glad I finally got around to seeing it. Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan are Jeff and Amy Taylor, a married couple who are relocating from New England to the opposite corner of the U.S. The titular event occurs in a remote part of the Southwest, and after a perhaps too kind trucker, Red (J.T. Walsh), stops and assists, Amy goes with him to wait it out at a diner. When Jeff goes to meet Amy, he finds no trace of her, and what follows doesn't match the thrills of semi-truck-based action of The Road Warrior, but it comes pretty close.
If I were only allowed to review this movie with once sentence, I would say that if Alfred Hitchcock made a thriller set on the open roads of the American Southwest, it might have resembled this movie. For one, Jeff Taylor exemplifies an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. From Escape from New York to Miracle, I'm used to seeing Kurt Russell play characters who are expected to take charge of every situation, and while his outfit suggesting he starts every conversation with "did you see the game last night" helps, he takes very well to the role of man whose every move seems like he's shooting in the dark. All the same, the movie would not work - or at least not as well - if it weren't for J.T. Walsh, whose steely gaze and talent for exuding sleaze made me loathe and love Red equally, not to mention lament the actor's early passing. M.C. Gainey is also a welcome sight as someone who I would be scared to death to cut off in traffic. Then again, it may be the stunt team who deserve all the credit, especially when you consider the scene where Jeff hangs on to the undercarriage of a trailer as the truck towing it barrels down a highway. Whoever the MVP may be, it ends up being a movie that remains exciting and suspenseful to the very end that is bound to make you wonder how far you would go and how much outside your comfort zone you would venture for your loved ones. While it may not be the deepest or rich in surprises as others in its genre, it proves that a movie does not need to be either to be great.