Breakdown, go ahead give it to me..

Breakdown

Synopsis from the interweb: "On their cross-country drive, a married couple, Jeff (Kurt Russell) and Amy Taylor (Kathleen Quinlan), experience car trouble after an accident. Stranded in the New Mexico desert, the two catch a break when a passing truck driver, Red Barr (J.T. Walsh), offers to drive Amy to a nearby café to call for help. Meanwhile, Jeff is able to fix the car and make his way to the café, only to find his wife missing and Barr claiming ignorance. Jeff then begins a frenzied search for Amy."

Release date: May 2, 1997 (USA)
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Writers: Jonathan Mostow, Sam Montgomery
Stars: Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan

In this teeth clenching thriller Writer/Director Jonathan Mostow took 1970s comedian Henny Youngman's very dated and mysonigystic joke "Take my wife, please!" a little too seriously when writing the screenplay for this film. What if Steven Spielberg's Duel and George Sluizer's The Vanishing had a sweet lil thriller baby? Throw in a little Race With The Devil with it's dusty highway car chases, except instead of Satanists there are shitbird truckers and instead of Warren Oates you have Kurt "Pliskin" Russel.

Would you get in some random truckers cab if your car broke down in the middle of the desert? Better yet, would you let your partner go alone with them while you stay with your car and dehydrate to death? I would not. Just saying. Maybe I remember 1996 differently but I'm pretty sure people were still awful.

So yeah, that's the setup for this film. Kurt Russel is supposed to meet his wife at a nasty little truck stop diner that I could actually smell the food poisoning coming off the screen. She's not there according to the beautiful diner patrons choking on pickled pigs feet sandwiches or whatever and Kurt Russel becomes increasingly unhinged as he races to uncover the truth. Who took his wife, please? Is it the truckers? The cops? The mean redneck assholes? The lady puking on the diner bathroom floor? You'll have to watch to find out.

Awesome car chases, a few tense scares, Kurt Russel getting a sunburn in real time, action packed twists and turns and a pretty sweet bone crushing finale.

I give it 💀💀💀💀💀💀 out of ten corpses.