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Breakdown (1997)Breakdown (1997)

Breakdown (1997)

A slickly directed thriller with a unique penchant for vehicular set pieces

Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

6.9

movie

United States of America
English
Action-packed, Character-driven, Intense
1997
Jonathan Mostow
Ancel Cook, J.T. Walsh, Jack McGee
95 min

Synopsis

rotten tomatoes
imdb
wikipedia
When his SUV breaks down on a remote Southwestern road, Jeff Taylor lets his wife, Amy, hitch a ride with a trucker to get help. When she doesn't return, Jeff fixes his SUV and tracks down the trucker -- who tells the police he's never seen Amy. Johnathan Mostow's tense thriller then follows Jeff's desperate search for his wife, which eventually uncovers a small town's murderous secret.

Our Take

6.9
The Staff

Sometimes all a movie needs to be entertaining is a character having a really bad day. Breakdown might not have the most story or thematic depth to it, but having Kurt Russell try to track down the men who kidnapped his wife leads to one tension-filled scene to the next. It’s a great showcase for the small towns and empty stretches of highway that make up so much of America, lending to the film the feel of a western, with violence and stuntwork that feel edgier than most ’90s action fare. There are no guarantees here that our hero will win the day, which makes the danger he’s in that much more exciting.

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