Breakdown

Year: 1997
Genre: Action
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Stars: Kurt Russell, Kathleen Quinlan, J.T. Walsh, M.C. Gainey, Jack Noseworthy, Rex Linn, Ritch Brinkley, Moira Sinise, Kim Robillard, Thomas Kopache, Jack McGee, Vincent Berry
Production: Paramount Pictures

Now here's a film that won't win any awards. It won't lend itself to overly complicated interpretation or be remembered for anything iconic. It's wholly second-rate as far as plot and character dynamics and it resoundingly breaks the unwritten rule of referencing better films. Yet despite all this, Breakdown is a thing of unappreciated greatness. It's a hidden gem of tone, tension and tomfoolery finding the nerve, gut-instinct and popcorny-ness that looks like it was conjured from the mind of Lee in the play "True West."

I got an idea for a movie, let's just do one big long car chase!

The plot reads like something out of a John Lemay novel. Jeff (Russell) and Amy (Quinlan) are driving through the desert in their Jeep cross-country. They breakdown on the side of the road where big rig trucker Red (Walsh) offers assistance. Amy leaves with Red to call for a tow while Jeff stays with the Jeep. Hours go by, Jeff checks the car and finds the battery has been tampered with and begins to suspect something is seriously wrong. From there the movie becomes a thriller stitched together by a ransom Jeff can't afford and handled by a group of menacing back-road truckers.

Breakdown was produced by the legendary Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis who in addition to spearheading the Italian film renaissance also had a penchant for the fanciful, the scintillating and the obscure. Projects like Flash Gordon (1980), King Kong (1976) and Dune (1984) prove that even at his worst De Laurentiis was a risk-taker; one who appreciated bold ideas.

For a relatively small movie made at the dusk of De Laurentiis's career, Breakdown is certainly a bold movie. It moves briskly through its plot, leaving little time for the audience to internalize the ridiculousness of the story while gleefully enjoying some fun action visuals. When the movie does slowdown enough to take a breather, it's surgical in its ability to create truly suspenseful cinematic moments. These moments approach the grandeur of Chinatown's (1974) "The future" scene made less memorable only because there are no iconic lines and, as I said, the plot is patently ridiculous.

Before CGI there were people crashing those cars

Yet it was the memory of our lead, getting the jump on Red's lacky Earl (Gainley) and the scene with Red's family is confronted with a pistol wielding Kurt Russell that brought me back to revisit this film years later. While similar "criminal trucker" films of the era like Black Dog (1998) and Joy Ride (2001) were solid in their own right, Breakdown is the only one that really sticks. When you see Russell straight-up dominating experienced truckers on the road via heavily armed car chase, I'm sure you'll agree.

Final Grade: B