Breakdown DVD [1998]

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Husband and wife Jeff (Kurt Russell) and Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) are driving from Boston to San Diego to make a fresh start when their car breaks down on a remote road. When truck driver 'Red' stops by he seems like a Godsend, offering to give Amy a lift to the nearest diner so that she can telephone for help. However, when Jeff manages to fix the car and drive to the diner, no-one has seen Red or Amy. He now embarks on a frantic search for his missing wife. .co.uk Review ------------- The sinister side of the divide between urban and rural America has inspired countless film makers and, although by no means original, Breakdown is a tense and at times dark example of the genre. Travelling to California to start a new life, Jeff and Amy Taylor are the perfect American couple, young, prosperous and devoted to each other. When they find themselves stranded in the desert following the breakdown of their car their dream descends into a vicious nightmare. With his wife disappearing into what seems like thin air, Taylor becomes embroiled in an increasingly desperate to rescue her: repeatedly facing a wall of silence from the local community. Kurt Russell handles the role well, comfortable with the numerous action sequences but also adept at portraying Taylor’s increasing mental anxiety in the kind of role perhaps more associated with the likes of Harrison Ford (a man who loses his wife more often than you or I might lose our car keys). The locals, led in suitably sinister form by the excellent JT Walsh, are a straight out of Deliverance--presented as dumb hicks but also capable of organising a complex kip. The film zips by at a pace, dwelling briefly but effectively on the astonishing number of people who go missing each year before culminating in a high-action, edge-of-the-seat climax. Not rocket science but fun all the same. On the DVD: Breakdown has a suitably epic feel thanks to the vast expanses of desert, and the picture quality on the DVD and the soundtrack’s clear effects do much to enhance this perception. Extras are kept to the bare minimum, with the standard chapter and subtitle selection all that is on offer. --Phil Udell