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Cast: Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan, M.C. Gainey, Jack Noseworthy, Rex Linn, Ritch
Brinkley
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Producers: Martha De Laurentiis, Dino De Laurentiis
Screenplay: Jonathan Mostow and Sam Montgomery based on the story by Jonathan Mostow
Cinematography: Doug Milsome
Music: Basil Poledouris
UK Distributor: Paramount Pictures
A few years ago, I was with a mate driving through the Mojave desert - like you do - looking for a petrol station. Having overshot the turn off, it was, needless to say, a little tense as we searched for our oil-splattered destination. To cut a long story short, we found the gas station and all was well.
Most drivers have been in the same situation at some point on the road: It's the middle of nowhere, you're lost, eyes fixed to the petrol gauge wondering if it's possible to make it to the next services without being stranded. With such a primal fear bubbling in every driver's psyche, it's little wonder canny film-makers have been keen to exploit this.
Many have been keen to try with a host of TV movies usually starring Robert Urich and Meredith Baxter Birney, credibility often taking a back seat to the cliched scripts.
However, while those are best forgotten, there are three great movies about highway horror that usually involve something a little more sinister than just looking for gas in the middle of a dust-laden desert.
Steven Spielberg directed the first, Duel, in the early Seventies; a terrific thriller with Dennis Weaver as a humble motorist terrorised by an unhinged trucker (who we never see).
The second was The Vanishing, George Sluizer's Dutch nail-biter about a young man desperately searching for his girlfriend after she disappears from a motorway service station.
Taking elements from both of the above, writer/director Jonathan Mostow created the third: Breakdown, an all too feasible thriller which rarely shifts out of top gear - until the third act. In the early days of production, things didn't look promising. Kurt Russell had just made the derivative yawnfest Escape From LA and Mostow's previous movies, Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers and Flight of the Black Angel, were far from classics.
To say both director and star pulled out all the stops is something of an understatement. Breakdown may not be in the same league as The Sixth Sense or The World is Not Enough - the finale is more than a little disappointing - but as a simple thriller, well told, this is a breathless trip to Hell and back.
Russell plays Jeff Taylor, the everyman motorist on a trip from Boston to San Diego with wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan). After breaking down in the middle of nowhere, she (rather stupidly) goes off with trucker JT Walsh to get help.
When his photogenic partner doesn't return, Kurt naturally smells a rat and is soon neck deep in trouble in an attempt to rescue his beloved.
While Russell is as good as ever, risking life and limb as the man who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, it's the late, great JT Walsh who shines in one of his final performances.
Hollywood psychos are two a penny in Tinseltown so to effectively play a man who is clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic without looking like a Scooby Doo villain takes some doing.
As Walsh proved with movies such as The Negotiator, Hollywood lost a superb supporting star the day he died.
© 1999 Roger Crow
