Supposed to be a thriller Breakdown barely succeeds in being more than a routine MOW. The premise was exciting but the storyline never brings us on surprising grounds. Scenes pile up to build a consistent yet lame story from the nice but already heavy Shining-inspired opening credits down to the final and over-the-top cliffhanger.
Redeeming features: first and foremost Kurt Russell floats this very forgettable (even disposable) movie and make it watchable. Jonathan Mostow's directing also creates inner dynamics within his own flatly episodic story. Eventually stunts are good but that's what you're bound to demand from a movie where action is the last refuge to make up for the overall lack of creativity. Breakdown wants so much to cash in on action sequences planted here and there in the storyline that stunts occur like the climax of those sequences, ridiculously closing an uninteresting boxing fight with a wrestling tour-de-force.
If you want to make a thriller, action cannot compensate for the lack of tension; and if you don't have the budget to make a big fat action movie stunt acts will soon look the same or overstretched. That's the big problem here: Breakdown was meant to be a thriller driving to its conclusion with brawn. In fact it gently drives along this straight line across the desert, slowly at first to create tension (i.e. at least some expectations) then aims to shake the audience, alternatively going full throttle then screeching to a halt. That's very cheap and lame.
Redeeming features: first and foremost Kurt Russell floats this very forgettable (even disposable) movie and make it watchable. Jonathan Mostow's directing also creates inner dynamics within his own flatly episodic story. Eventually stunts are good but that's what you're bound to demand from a movie where action is the last refuge to make up for the overall lack of creativity. Breakdown wants so much to cash in on action sequences planted here and there in the storyline that stunts occur like the climax of those sequences, ridiculously closing an uninteresting boxing fight with a wrestling tour-de-force.
If you want to make a thriller, action cannot compensate for the lack of tension; and if you don't have the budget to make a big fat action movie stunt acts will soon look the same or overstretched. That's the big problem here: Breakdown was meant to be a thriller driving to its conclusion with brawn. In fact it gently drives along this straight line across the desert, slowly at first to create tension (i.e. at least some expectations) then aims to shake the audience, alternatively going full throttle then screeching to a halt. That's very cheap and lame.