Review of Broken

Broken (III) (2006)
7/10
Well crafted and very disturbing story of survival
6 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Here's the simple plot summary...

"After dating a wonderful man, Hope comes back home, sees her daughter Jennifer and goes to sleep. She wakes-up in the woods in a box in a hole, and a psychopath, fighting to survive for more than forty days and asking information about her daughter to the stranger."

It says its based on a true story, and wow, what an ordeal that must have been, because the movie is extremely nasty and disturbing. The short back story of Hope was an add on according to the filmmakers, they were going to start the movie with Hope waking up in a box in a grave, and you don't know who anybody is, which I actually think would have even been better. But moreorless, you still don't know who anybody is, nor do you really care, because this movie is about survival against extremely long odds. The psychopath woodsman, apparently is kidnapping women and putting them through extreme tests to hopefully for him, find one that can be his companion. After waking up, the women are placed hanging on their tiptoes tied by the neck to a tree, and a razor blade has been implanted in their stomachs. The object is, they have to dig out the razor blade through the stitches, cut the rope, and then they are free to pass his other tests. For Hope, the tests don't go much further than that, because the woodsman is impressed with her, and she learns how to cope with the madman, until she figures out a way to escape. The whole beginning credits get the movie off to a very excruciating start, as a previous woman is scene attempting to dig out the razor blade to free herself, with her guts falling out of her belly, and then pleading for the woodsman to kill her. She grabs the trigger of the shotgun in her face, and pulls the trigger, and wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, we are off to the races. It seems the woodsman doesn't actually think he is killing anybody, because he gives them a chance to survive, and if they don't, well, it's their fault for being so weak and stupid. While Hope is being held captive, the woodsman brings in another woman who does not stop crying and begging, which irritates even Hope. Simple enough, he takes a nice long hunting knife and cuts out her tongue and vocal cords. Yea boy, that will fix that problem every time. Wonder if that would have saved one of my marriages?? I'm talking about the wife of course. This movie has been compared to SAW, which is totally misleading. Nothing about the two are similar, except for maybe the tree and razor blade thing, which Jigsaw should have thought of. This movie is very good, very depressing, and even the ending which looks promising, delivers a gut punch that is totally unexpected all the way around. You see, all through this, Hope is concerned more for her daughter than herself, because her daughter disappeared with her, and the woodsman only says her daughter was too weak. The movie is never boring, and very interesting as this strange bizarre woodsman, seems to be only looking for a mate. It does not fall into that idiot genre name torture porn, which I hate, because after the initial scenes, it comes down to a cat and mouse game, with the mouse slowly figuring out how to trap the cat. This is the one with everybody saying how terrible the commentary is, and for only the few minutes I listened to it so far, it does seem to be very annoying.
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