Review of Breakdown

Introduction

If you were driving along in the desert with your darling wife, what would be the worst thing that could happen to you? Jonathan Mostow (now helming the soon to be released Terminator 3) takes this simple premise and creates a chilling scenario: your wife being kidnapped off the face of the planet.

Jeff and wife Amy are driving cross-country to a new life on the West coast, but run into trouble in the middle of nowhere when their engine dies on them. A friendly truck driver (played by the late J.T. Walsh) stops by and offers assistance; Amy decides to go with him to the nearest town to get help whilst Jeff stays with the car. But soon after she leaves he discovers the breakdown was caused by a simple loose connection, so happily he can meet his wife at the rendezvous. But when he gets there no one has seen his wife, or even the truck driver. Even the police seem to be working against him. Can he find Amy before trouble finds him?

Video

Breakdown has an anamorphic widescreen transfer that produces a decent visual experience, but not amongst the best I`ve seen by a long way. The definition of the picture appears to be sharp throughout, but on closer inspection this is partially due to the edge enhancement on the transfer. Also, some of the colours seem a little washed out, as almost all the scenes are shot very brightly in the glare of the sun. Nonetheless, the picture is more than adequate and, once the movie has gripped you, I doubt you’ll notice its faults anyway.

Audio

The audio quality of this DVD is good, yet not great. Overall the 5.1 mix makes good use of surround effects, but falls down when using LFEs – when a large explosion occurs, it does not sound as awe-inspiringly bassy as it should do. The soundtrack however contains a superbly effective score that perfectly accompanies the tense moments on screen.

Features

Somewhat disappointingly Fox has made very little effort on the extras on this disc, only including a trailer. I would have really enjoyed listening to a Mostow commentary on this disc as his one on U-571 was suprisingly good.

Conclusion

Breakdown is simply one of the most entertaining and suspenseful thrillers I have seen – not just in the past few years, but ever. Yes, the film does turn into more of an action movie instead of a detective plot halfway through, but Kurt Russell’s performance provides so compelling an anchor that the believability of the situation and reaction of this ordinary Joe is never lost.

Sporting a new anamorphic transfer over the R1 version, although still unfortunately light on the extras, the UK version of Breakdown is currently the best version to get. Although Mostow is extremely busy shooting T3 at the moment, it does seem this film is big enough revisited sometime, so if you’re as big a fan of the film as I am perhaps you might want to wait for that.