Breakdown

If you've never seen Breakdown, it could be described as a more intelligent version of Joy Ride (or, perhaps, The Hitcher). It's about a married couple named Jeff (Kurt Russell) and Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) who are driving cross country—from Boston to San Diego—to take on more lucrative employment opportunities. Along the way, they almost collide with a local in a pick-up truck on a remote desert highway. When they stop at the next gas station, the fella driving the truck—a black-clad hombre with a handlebar moustache and a cowboy hat—proceeds to chew out Jeff for his idiotic behaviour behind the wheel. The two eventually call a truce, part ways, and go about their lives.

It's not long, however, before Jeff's brand new Jeep inexplicably breaks down. As the couple is trying to assess the situation, a man in an 18-wheeler stops, offers assistance, and eventually ends up suggesting the pair ride with him to the nearest town so they can call a tow truck. Jeff is leery about leaving his car on the side of a highway with a local lunatic on the prowl, so Amy hops in the semi, presumably to wait for her husband at a diner as he figures out what to do. Once she leaves, Jeff discovers the problem, fixes the car, and heads to the diner. When he gets there, though, Amy is nowhere to be found. The locals have no idea who she is, and they all claim to have never seen her. What ensues is a maddeningly wild goose chase across barren southwestern terrain as Jeff does everything in his power to find his spouse.

There are twists and turns aplenty, and the action is great. The most disturbing thing about the film is how genuine it all seems. I have no trouble believing that something like this could (and perhaps has) occur in such remote locales, and there's a real sense of desperation to everything that's unfolding.

Russell is great as the panicked husband who knows he's going to have to take things to the extreme to get his wife back, and almost every one of his decisions seems completely rational. The movie does give way to certain conventions from time to time, and I wish it would've built up the paranoia just a little longer before the "big reveal" occurs, but there's no denying the intensity on display here. Terrific movie.