In this suspense thriller, a man discovers the unexpected danger of trusting a good Samaritan. Jeff Taylor (Kurt Russell) and his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) are driving through the New Mexico desert en route to California when an incident with a lunatic driver causes their jeep to break down in the middle of nowhere. Jeff is trying to fix the vehicle when an apparently friendly truck driver, Red Barr (J.T. Walsh), stops by to offer help. Red tells the couple that there's a diner a few miles
down the road where they can call for help; Jeff decides to stay with the car while Amy hops a ride with Red to see if she can find a mechanic to help them. After a long wait, Jeff is able to get the jeep running again, and he discovers that the diner is indeed a few miles down the road. But everyone there claims they've seen no sign of Amy, and Red claims to know nothing about picking her up. When Jeff attempts to file a missing person's report, he discovers mysterious disappearances are disturbingly common in this stretch of the desert; he soon realizes that someone has kidnapped his wife, but he's not sure who, or for what purpose. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Breakdown has plenty of deft action sequences, and what they add up to is nifty garbage disposal, with all of us -- characters, filmmakers, viewers -- ultimately spiraling down the same drain.
A first-rate nail-biter that packs more genuine white-knuckle moments into 100 minutes than a dozen overpriced volcano movies could ever dream of having.
Are we really supposed to empathize with the empathy-proof Kurt Russell? I was actually hoping that his character's wife had run away with the trucker ...
A plain old bad movie with a ridiculous plot and no logic. The first thirty minutes was sort've interesting, but after that it just takes a trip to crazy town. It just becomes the most ridiculous plot that has no base in reality. They tried to attempt blending abduction with action and it just didn't work.
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