Breakdown . Tucson Weekly . 05-15-97

Breakdown

DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Mostow

REVIEWED: 05-15-97

This is one of those small, seemingly inconsequential movies that sneaks in and proves to be worlds more entertaining than its "blockbuster" competition. The premise is simple enough: While driving across the desert, yuppie Kurt Russell's wife Kathleen Quinlan is cleverly kidnapped by yahoos, and Russell has to save her with few resources and even less information. Writer/director Jonathan Mostow neatly builds a queasy, stranded-feeling tension that rarely ebbs, and smartly never lets Russell seem like anything other than an ordinary guy. The resulting payoffs are huge, and at its best Breakdown recalls Steven Spielberg's Duel, or that great cropduster sequence in Hitchcock's North by Northwest. The lubberly J.T. Walsh adds a healthy dose of creepiness as a two-faced truck driver.

--Zachary Woodruff

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Breakdown

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