Kurt Russell and the late great character
actor J.T. Walsh have shared the screen multiples times together, specifically
in Robert Towne’s Tequila Sunrise (1989), Ron Howard’s Backdraft
(1991), and Stuart Baird’s Executive Decision (1994). In the Spring of 1997,
I saw the trailer for a new film called Breakdown, also featuring these
two fine actors. I groaned - it looked like just another run-of-the-mill,
headache-inducing, over-the-top testosterone action fest with very little basis
in reality. Foolishly, I avoided it until I found myself at the Glendale 9, an
Arizona multiplex drive-in while in Phoenix on a business trip. Breakdown
was just about the only movie on the marquee that looked remotely interesting,
though I still had serious doubts. Reluctantly, I paid the admission, fearing
the worst. For the first time in a long time, I was wrong. Completely wrong.
My initial reservations about Breakdown were totally erased halfway
through the story. Years of suffering through uninteresting action films with empty,
amusement park-like “thrills†almost prevented me from seeing one of the best
films of the 1990s and a movie that easily lends itself to repeat viewings. I
watched Breakdown while reclining on the hood of my rental car. To say
that I was absolutely riveted would be a huge understatement. I thought the
paint would permanently adhere to my sweaty palms.
For
me, Breakdown is a near masterpiece. To disclose the plot would destroy what
I found to be an utterly nail-biting motion picture experience, which is
something I do not think I have ever truly experienced. There are some spoilers
ahead, so non-viewers please tread lightly. There is such an overwhelming sense
of menace and peril in Breakdown that it almost becomes a cruel
experiment in fear. For a first-time directing job by Jonathan Mostow, who
previously scripted the Michael Douglas/David Fincher film The Game
(1997), Breakdown is awe-inspiring. The opening credits sequence alone
is imaginative and appropriate to the story, utilizing animation to simultaneously
represent a mesh of cartographic interstates and what could also be construed
as cerebral arteries. The film’s title is a double meaning. Kurt Russell and
Kathleen Quinlan are Jeff and Amy Taylor, a forty-something married couple
moving from New England to San Diego in a brand-new Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo
SUV. On their way driving through the empty plains of the Midwest, Jeff is
momentarily distracted reaching for his thermos and just misses crashing into a
mud caked Ford F150 pick-up driven by a large man who shouts obscenities. An
unfortunate encounter ensues later when the man castigates Jeff while refueling.
Speeding away, the new Jeep suffers an electrical difficulty and Jeff and Amy
find themselves stranded in a place befitting of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. The
Ford truck speeds by, cheerfully acknowledging the couple’s plight with a long
horn blow leading to a brief and tense stand-off which is alleviated by the
arrival of Red Barr, a truck driver (the late great J.T. Walsh) who offers to
give Amy a ride to Belle’s Diner some miles down the road to call road service
(his CB blew a fuse earlier and is non-functioning). When she accepts, Jeff
waits…and waits…and discovers an unplugged wire in the Jeep’s undercarriage.
Normally,
I would call out Amy’s foolishness for accepting such a ride as a woman her age
should know the dangers of hitch-hiking, however New Englanders routinely give
rides to one another and this plot point helps explain her action. Jeff makes
his way to the diner and all the patrons and owner (a terrific turn by
character actor Jack McGee) do not recall seeing her, except for a mildly slow
co-worker in the parking lot. This puts into motion a high level of suspense as
Jeff’s cell phone fails to get decent service while he rushes to find his wife.
It turns out that Jeff and Amy have been pegged for financial embezzlement by
Red, Earl (M.C. Gainey as the Ford driver), Billy (Jack Noseworthy, the “slowâ€
diner worker), and Al (the late Rich Brinkley), a husky accomplice. Rex Linn of
TV’s Better Call Saul is also on hand as a police officer who offers
Jeff some recourse.
Breakdown, which opened on Friday, May 2, 1997, might
appear to be an action film, but it is more of a thriller with some action
sequences. It has been a longtime indeed since this level of suspense has seen
the light of day on the silver screen. It is so good, in fact, that it feels
like a Seventies film made in the Nineties. It is amazing that it was not the
blockbuster that it deserved to be. Poor marketing perhaps?
Shooting
in the 2.35:1 Panavision ratio, Mr. Mostow has created a plausible scenario
replete with four of the most frightening villains seen of late. They certainly
give Bill McKinney and Herbert "Cowboy" Coward, the mountain men in Deliverance
(1972), a run for their money. J. T. Walsh, who unfortunately passed away not
too long after this film was released (his death is a real loss to the film
world), appears in one of the best performances of his sterling and memorable career:
a purely evil man who doubles as an everyday Joe who loves his wife and son (Moira
Harris and Vincent Berry, respectively) but commits terrible acts for money. You
get the feeling that these monsters have been doing what they do for a long
time, although there were moments wherein I thought a double-cross would
transpire among them. They all appear to be loyal to one another, making me
wonder how these guys ended up together in the first place. The supporting cast
all do a phenomenal job as well.
Breakdown’s plot is by no means original. This type of
story depicting a person who goes missing has been told over many decades: Robert
Fuest's And Soon the Darkness (1970), Philip Leacock's television film Dying
Room Only (1973), and, in particular, George Sluizer’s icy 1988 Dutch/French
character study Spoorloos, known in the States as The Vanishing. Breakdown
succeeds for the same reason that Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971) does
(though Duel is more cinematic): it takes two ordinary human beings and
thrusts them into a horrendous situation they would never have any reason to
suspect they would ever be a part of. That is not to say that the film does not
have a few convenient plot devices, but even when it does, they can be
forgiven.
Kurt
Russell is perfectly cast. I loved him as Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s Escape
From New York (1981) and as MacReady in John Carpenter’s The Thing
(1982). He is an amazing and criminally underrated actor. The look of terror
and fear on his face is complete and real. Some reviews have criticized the
film’s ending, but for me it is a much needed and deserving money shot and a relief;
it makes me wonder the future of the people sitting in the final frame.
In
the days of VHS and laserdisc, Breakdown is a film that I owned on the
latter format in a letterboxed edition. In 1998, the film suffered the
indignity of a rather lackluster transfer on DVD. This wrong has been righted
by the long overdue Blu-ray which is now available from Australia-based Via Vision
Entertainment’s Imprint line. The special features and technical specs consist
of:
1080p
high-definition presentation from a 4K scan by Paramount Pictures.
A feature-length audio commentary by film critic
Peter Tonguette. This is extremely interesting to listen to. He describes why
the two leads are so appealing and why their backstory is not explicitly
delineated; he also talks about an interview he did with supervising sound
editor Jon Johnson and how the audio was designed for the film. This is a
critical area of filmmaking that gets virtually no love. He also provides
comments on the work of cinematographer Douglas Milsome. who worked with
Stanley Kubrick on Full Metal Jacket (1987).
It’s Gonna Cost You: Making Breakdown is an offscreen
interview with writer/director Mostow. Mr. Mostow talks about how Breakdown
began life as a failed new film version of the Stephen King short story “Trucksâ€.
There are eight or so shots of the final set piece that are comprised of
miniatures and they mesh imperceptibly into the final film. There are also still
shots of the initial ten-minute prologue that ended up, rightly so, on the
cutting room floor which describes why Jeff and Amy move across the country. Ironically,
everyone loved these scenes except the director who consistently argued for
their excision! William Friedkin is absolutely right – when you cut a film, you
have to be completely ruthless in removing what doesn’t serve the story. That
being said, I like Jeff and Amy so much that I would have loved to have seen
this footage in the supplemental section. You can read the scene in the revised
first draft of the screenplay dated March 1996 here,
just a month prior to filming commenced. This piece runs about 24 minutes.
The Trap is Set: Inside the Stunts is an interview with
stunt coordinator M. James Arnett that runs 10 minutes and pulls the curtain
back on some of the film’s most amazing stunts and how they were accomplished,
including the stunning ending.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Remembering Basil Poledouris is an interview with
musician Eric Colvin about his time working with composer Basil Poledouris, who
sadly passed away much too early in 2006. This composer first came to my
attention in May 1982 upon seeing John Milius’s Conan The Barbarian,
which boasted an amazing orchestral score. Breakdown has a wonderfully
minimalist score that fits the film like a glove, its sparseness made to
enunciate Jeff’s feeling of being an outsider and realizing that he is on his
own as far as finding his wife is concerned. This runs roughly 13 minutes.
They Think I’m A Dummy – Jack Noseworthy on Breakdown. The actor who plays
Billy discusses his fascination with this character and how it evolved from one
into two separate characters. This piece runs about 11 minutes.
Life is Jeep: Breakdown and the Psychology of the Road. This is a 15-minute
visual essay by Ian Mantgani who discusses the films that are similar to Breakdown,
and I’m glad he also noticed the parallels to Duel (1971) and The
Vanishing (1988), too. He mentions Oliver Stone’s U Turn (1997), a
film that I need to catch up on.
Interview with Film Critic Tim Robey runs about 17
minutes and is insightful and makes me want to revisit much of Kurt Russell’s
previous work.
Theatrical Trailer: Watching this again now, it is actually
pretty good. Proof of how far off the mark I was when I first saw it!
For
die-hard fans of the film, there is a 480p short on Youtube called Breakdown
- Behind the Scenes (Kurt Russell) that has footage not seen on this
Blu-ray.
My
personal thanks to Imprint for releasing this film, one of my
all-time favorites! They have a sterling roster of titles, so check them out! I
will have more reviews of their releases in the weeks ahead.
(The Blu-ray of Breakdown is an Australian import but is in region-free format.)