Breakdown is a 1997 film, written and directed by Jonathan Mostow. The film stars Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh and Kathleen Quinlan. The film was released on May 2, 1997 by Paramount Pictures. It was filmed on location in Sacramento, California, Moab, Utah and Sedona, Arizona.
Plot summary
Married couple Jeff and Amy Taylor (Kurt Russell, Kathleen Quinlan) are driving across the country to move to California and almost collide with another truck on the road. Jeff is later confronted by its driver, Earl (M. C. Gainey), at a gas station. A short time afterwards, their car breaks down in the middle of the desert. Amy accepts a ride with a trucker named "Red" Barr (J. T. Walsh) to a small diner to call for help, while Jeff stays with the car. Jeff discovers disconnected wires to be the problem with the car and drives to the diner, but no one there has seen his wife. When he catches up with Barr, the trucker swears that he has never seen her, or Jeff, before. Jeff hails a passing Sheriff, but a brief search of Barr's truck is fruitless.
Jeff returns to the local police station where he is advised to go back to the diner and wait for his wife. Jeff does so, only to end up meeting with Billy (Jack Noseworthy), supposedly a town simpleton, who tells Jeff that he saw his wife come in with Red and leave in another truck. Billy tells Jeff where they have taken her and Jeff gives chase, but is ambushed on the road by Earl. Jeff escapes by driving his car into a river. He exits the sinking car and floats down the river, later circling back around to where his attackers are salvaging it from the water. He is then knocked out by Billy.
Jeff awakes in the trunk of a car. Billy opens it and asks how much money Jeff has, which is then demanded in exchange for his wife, who is being held hostage.
Jeff heads into the local bank to withdraw money and starts to confide in the bank manager, but is dissuaded by an unknown person entering the bank. While the bank manager is busy with the transaction, Jeff steals some money ribbons and the bank manager's letter opener. Jeff is then instructed by phone to leave town, where he is picked up by Earl.
While gloating about how easy Jeff and his wife were to trick, Earl discovers that Jeff has wrapped stacks of $1 bills with a single $100 bill on the top and the bottom of the stacks, using the money ribbons stolen from the bank manager's desk. Jeff then stabs Earl with the letter opener and forces him to reveal where his wife is. The same sheriff from the beginning of the film, seeing the erratically-driven truck, pursues and attempts to arrest both Earl and Jeff. Earl shoots the sheriff with a pistol concealed in his boot. As Earl is about to shoot Jeff, the wounded sheriff shoots and kills Earl. Jeff calls for an ambulance on the Sheriff's radio, then leaves to find his wife.
Although initially unsuccessful at finding Billy or his wife at the truck stop Earl mentioned, Jeff sees Red, who is preoccupied with a telephone call to an accomplice. Jeff manages to jump onto Barr's moving truck.
Red eventually returns to his family's farm. Jeff hides in a barn and watches Red, Billy, and Al take Amy from a compartment underneath the truck. They lock her in the basement under the barn and return to the house.
Jeff slips into the house and demands the barn keys from Red at gunpoint. Red's son appears with a gun and threatens Jeff, but accidentally shoots Al in the arm after Jeff knocks the gun from his hands. Jeff forces them to return to the barn. Red's wife opens the barn basement, and frees Amy from the box. Jeff locks everyone in the basement, then he and Amy steal a pickup truck and leave. Billy, who escaped the house during the struggle, then opens the basement.
Billy, Al and Red pursue Jeff and Amy; the former in cars, the latter in his truck. Jeff manages to force Billy and Al's cars off the road, but Red then corners them on a road bridge and tries to push their truck through the barrier. Amy's leg is trapped under the truck's dashboard, but Jeff escapes and attacks Red in his truck, which is eventually driven off the bridge, getting caught on a barrier support.
While Jeff hangs off the truck, Red tries to whip him with a chain but Jeff grabs it and pulls Red off the truck, making him fall to the rocks below. Jeff frees Amy and the two look down at the seemingly-dead Red, who then starts to move. Amy pulls the stick shift on their pickup truck — which has been holding Red's truck in place — and it falls, crushing him.
Cast listing
Trivia
- Breakdown was the last film starring J. T. Walsh released during his lifetime. He died suddenly the year after the movie's release.
- When Jeff goes inside Red's house, his son is playing Doom.
- Kurt Russell was helicoptered in and out of the areas of shooting so he could be with his family in Los Angeles at night.
- In the original script, Red talks briefly to Amy in the gas station store at the beginning of the film.
- "Red"'s truck is a Peterbilt 377.
External links
