BREAKDOWN
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1997 Michael Redman
*** (out of ****)
My favorite scene in this film comes near the end. A huge vehicle crashes through a bridge, falling to the rocks below. And it doesn't explode into a fireball! That episode is so satisfying that it more than makes up for an earlier conflagration.
Bostonian Yups Jeff (Kurt Russell) and Amy Taylor (Kathleen Quinlan) are heading to new jobs in San Diego. Driving across America in their new Jeep Grand Cherokee loaded down with all their worldly possessions, they stand out like the city dwellers that they are in the Arizona wastelands. The contrast between the clean cuts with their cell phone (which doesn't work in the isolated wilderness) and the rugged rednecks in their dirty beat-up pick-ups is one of the less than subtle aspects of the movie.
When their car breaks down on a deserted highway under the blazing sun, the Taylors are overjoyed to see good Samaritan trucker Red Barr (the ominous J.T. Walsh) who offers Amy a ride to the nearest diner. Soon after she leaves, Jeff reconnects two loose wires and solves the problem. Everything seems to be working out well until he walks into the cowboy bar where his wife supposedly awaits him only to discover that she's not there and probably never has been.
Panicking, he roars down the road and conveniently for the film, finds Red. Mysteriously the trucker claims not to have ever seen the couple. Later, back at the bar, everyone seems to be a part of the conspiracy: the cops, the uncaring cafe country boys, the surly owner and even the simple-minded kid washing a car in the parking lot.
About half way through, the movie changes it's approach and moves from mystery to action as Jeff takes on the bad guys. Both portions of the story work well and fit together fairly seemlessly. The first pulls you in and the second gives you a chance to cheer for the hero.
Russell has played two very different roles in recent years. Sometimes he's Snake Plissken ("Escape From This City Or That One"), but here, as in "Executive Decision", he's Everyman. Jeff becomes something other than who he has been as he bulls and blunders his way into becoming a warrior. There are a few unbelievable bits, but even they are relatively acceptable. After all, we bought Harrison Ford's stunts in the Indiana Jones movies.
Ordinary people forced into heroics by extraordinary situations is a tried but true theme. It's much easier for the audience to relate to their next door neighbor than to Rambo. That it could happen to you makes the film even more suspenseful.
The film "borrows" from a number of others. The story comes from "The Vanishing", the class conflict from "Deliverance", the mood from Hitchcock and the truck menace in the beautiful but bleak southwest from the very early Spielberg "Duel". But, as has been noted often before, there's not much new under the sun and "Breakdown" does well with the recycled ideas.
More disturbing is the apparent underlying theme of "us versus them" where us are the wealthy well educated and them are the blue collar ne'er do wells. Nearly everyone except our friends from Massachusetts is evil, scowling, suspicious or a combination of all the above. Even the one heroic Arizona hick is decidedly unfriendly. This geocentric view of society seems like a cheap shot.
[This appeared in the 5/12/97 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com ]
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