Best movie of this year hands down!

That was an excellent one.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Tense nailbiter. Good drama and suspense, nice action and solid cinematography and editing.

Married couple Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) and Jeff Taylor (Kurt Russell) are driving across the country to move to San Diego. They get into a close call with driver Earl (M.C. Gainey). When their car breaks down, they're happy that trucker Red Barr (J.T. Walsh) stops to help. Amy gets a ride from him to a diner close by. Jeff finds some wires disconnected. He restarts the car and drives to the diner but nobody had seen his wife. He tracks down Red Barr's truck but he claims to have never seen him or his wife. Sheriff Boyd (Rex Linn) passes by but a search of the truck reveals nothing.The movie ramps up the tension at every turn. It is quite unrelenting. There are a couple of scenes that feel too manipulative. There is no real reason to climb around while traveling under the truck although dropping the gun is fully expected. The final section has him catching the family unawares. There is no reason for him to start shooting other than a sense of movie morality. The movie keeps pushing the tension to an ultra-high level and it pushes too hard in a couple of places.

Now here's a film that won't win any awards. It won't lend itself to overly complicated interpretation or be remembered for anything iconic. It's wholly second-rate as far as plot and character dynamics and it resoundingly breaks the unwritten rule of referencing better films. Yet despite all this, Breakdown is a thing of unappreciated greatness. It's a hidden gem of tone, tension and tomfoolery finding the nerve, gut-instinct and popcorny-ness that looks like it was conjured from the mind of Lee in the play "True West."The plot reads like something out of a John Lemay novel. Jeff (Russell) and Amy (Quinlan) are driving through the desert in their Jeep cross-country. They breakdown on the side of the road where big rig trucker Red (Walsh) offers assistance. Amy leaves with Red to call for a tow while Jeff stays with the Jeep. Hours go by, Jeff checks the car and finds the battery has been tampered with and begins to suspect something is seriously wrong. From there the movie becomes a thriller stitched together by a ransom Jeff can't afford and handled by a group of menacing back-road truckers.Breakdown was produced by the legendary Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis who in addition to spearheading the Italian film renaissance also had a penchant for the fanciful, the scintillating and the obscure. Projects like Flash Gordon (1980), King Kong (1976) and Dune (1984) prove that even at his worst De Laurentiis was a risk-taker; one who appreciated bold ideas.For a relatively small movie made at the dusk of De Laurentiis's career, Breakdown is certainly a bold movie. It moves briskly through its plot, leaving little time for the audience to internalize the ridiculousness of the story while gleefully enjoying some fun action visuals. When the movie does slowdown enough to take a breather, it's surgical in its ability to create truly suspenseful cinematic moments. These moments approach the grandeur of Chinatown's (1974) "The future" scene made less memorable only because there are no iconic lines and, as I said, the plot is patently ridiculous.Yet it was the memory of our lead, getting the jump on Red's lacky Earl (Gainley) and the scene with Red's family is confronted with a pistol wielding Kurt Russell that brought me back to revisit this film years later. While similar "criminal trucker" films of the era like Black Dog (1998) and Joy Ride (2001) were solid in their own right, Breakdown is the only one that really sticks. When you see Russell straight-up dominating experienced truckers on the road via heavily armed car chase, I'm sure you'll agree.

There's something about Kurt Russell and a lot of the roles he has chosen over the years in his filmography during the 1980s & 1990s. As far as it has been seen, Russell has three major sides. There's the cult role, where although it wasn't recognized upon release, it became popular later. There's also the comedy or action role he has taken part in that people remember him for fondly for. And then there's Kurt Russell's thriller side of films, where he plays an ordinary man caught in extremely dangerous situations that could happen in the real world. But as far as situations go, this is by far the film that hits closest to home just because of how nerve-rackingly possible it can be. Not to mention but the tag line to the movie says it all - "It Could Happen to You". Great, thanks for reminding us.The story to this thriller is about couple Jeff and Amy Taylor (Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan) who are moving to California from Massachusetts. On their travels, their car stalls and manage to get a passerby's attention driving an 18-wheeler. The trucker, Red Barr (J.T. Walsh), offers to drive them to a next stop so they can call a tow- truck. Not wanting to leave their car alone, Jeff lets Amy go with Red. After some time, Jeff manages to get his car running and heads to the stop where he was supposed to meet his wife. As it turns out she's not there and nobody saw her arrive. This starts Jeff on a long search and rescue and his findings reveal to him things he never thought possible. Written by Sam Montgomery and Jonathan Mostow (who also directed), this thriller is tense all the way although it becomes more fictitious as it goes on, it still is a thriller that crosses the boundaries of how plausible this situation actually is.The acting is one of the strongest parts to this story. Although Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan do not have much screen time together, they feel like an authentic couple. J.T. Walsh as the passerby truck driver is also convincing in his performance for the character that he plays. There's also other roles played by other known actors like M.C. Gainey, Jack Noseworthy and Rex Linn as the town police officer. The only part of the writing that doesn't work in favor of the actors is the story's predictability. There really is no surprise. The trailer to the film alone allows some spoilers to slide. But even without viewing the trailer, the execution itself reveals its hand a little early. As to whether the secret was supposed to be kept hidden is unknown but again, it is rather obvious. The bigger question that'll linger on the audiences' mind is what's going on. This is the second strongest element to the film - tension.As the film progresses, small clue tidbits are given to the audience as to possible outcomes of what happened to Jeff's wife. With that, there's only so many solutions one can create to try understand the problem. Without the audience exactly knowing what happened to Jeff's wife is a great way to get the viewers' imaginations to run wild with thought. This is exactly why this thriller is so much scarier than running into the Sawyer family from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) (although it does have small traces of influence). The fact that several people everyday go missing is much more realistic than crossing paths with a chainsaw wielding cannibal, is why this hits closer to home; just like the movie's tagline, "It Could Happen to You". To assume any normal human being would want to be captured would be absolutely insane. Besides, if you wanted to be captured, then you're really not being captured as definition claims the action to be.Thankfully, along with the high tension come some worthy retaliation scenes that involve fighting back. Of course, if you want the protagonist to get what they want, it's going to be fun watching those scenes. Who doesn't like watching antagonists getting what they deserve? The cinematography is a nice addition as well. Handled by Douglas Milsome (Full Metal Jacket (1987)), numerous shots contain what they need to show; barren rock land,...better known as isolation. Yet as gloomy as the setting feels, it is quite beautiful to look at. Bright clear sunny skies, mountain ranges in the background and a single road highway. Definitely a different setting than your usual urban territory. Finally the music composed by Basil Poledouris (best known for his work on RoboCop (1987) and RoboCop 3 (1993)) was decently constructed. There's no recognizable main theme but Poledouris includes a number of tracks that emphasize the bleak emptiness that is the desert area of North America. Even so, his tracks that involve fighting are also well made too. All around, an intense watch.It has a bit of mystery in its story but much of that is revealed way at the beginning. However with chilling storytelling that concentrates on how it could happen to the person watching it, the events that occur are scary at times. The acting is solid, the music sounds organic and the camera-work looks great; all of which keep the tension high the whole time.