| Breakdown | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jonathan Mostow |
| Screenplay by | Jonathan Mostow Sam Montgomery |
| Story by | Jonathan Mostow |
| Produced by | Dino De Laurentiis Martha De Laurentiis |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Douglas Milsome |
| Edited by | Derek Brechin Kevin Stitt |
| Music by | Basil Poledouris |
Production companies | Dino De Laurentiis Company Spelling Films |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $36 million[1] |
| Box office | $50.2 million[1] |
Breakdown is a 1997 Americanaction thriller film directed byJonathan Mostow from the screenplay he wrote with Sam Montgomery. It starsKurt Russell as a man whose wife is kidnapped by a truck driver after their car mysteriously breaks down during a cross-country drive, leading him on a desperate search to track her down and confront her captors. The film also starsKathleen Quinlan andJ. T. Walsh. The original music score was composed and conducted byBasil Poledouris and performed by theHollywood Studio Symphony. The film was produced byDino De Laurentiis andMartha De Laurentiis.
Breakdown was released on May 2, 1997, byParamount Pictures, and is the final film featuring J. T. Walsh to be released in his lifetime.
Jeff Taylor and his wife Amy drive from Boston to San Diego in a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Nearing the Arizona desert they nearly collide with a battered pickup. At a gas station the pickup's driver, Earl, angrily confronts Jeff before departing. On a remote stretch the Jeep stalls. Amy accepts a lift from a passing tractor‑trailer driven by Red Barr to reach a diner and seek assistance, while Jeff remains with the vehicle. Inspecting the engine, he discovers the battery cables deliberately loosened. After reconnecting them he arrives at the diner, where employees insist Amy never appeared. Jeff intercepts Barr's rig, but Barr denies knowledge. Sheriff Boyd searches the cab, finds nothing, and directs Jeff to the nearby town of Brackett.
Returning to the diner, Jeff is approached by Billy, a seemingly slow‑witted mechanic, who claims Amy left with several men and warns him to avoid the police. Following Billy's directions, Jeff is ambushed by Earl, escapes by plunging the Jeep into a river, and is captured by Earl and Billy. They take him to Barr at an isolated hideout. Barr demands that Jeff withdraw $90,000 from his bank account, threatening Amy's life. In Brackett, Jeff can access only $5,000, so he conceals one‑dollar bills between two hundred‑dollar notes and pockets a letter opener, abandoning an attempt to alert the bank manager when he suspects Barr's accomplices are watching.
Earl collects Jeff, boasts of sabotaging the Jeep, and states the couple will be murdered regardless. Jeff frees himself with the opener, stabs Earl, ties him up, and forces him to reveal a rendezvous point at a truck stop. The pair are halted by Boyd. Earl shoots the sheriff but is shot dead in return. After radioing for aid, Jeff goes to the truck stop and finds and hides beneath Barr's trailer and is carried to Barr's remote farm.
In the barn, Jeff discovers trophies from earlier tourist robberies. Billy and accomplice Al arrive with a bound Amy and lock her in a cellar freezer. Armed with a revolver, Jeff confronts Barr. A distraction from Barr's young son Deke allows Billy to flee, but Jeff forces Barr to open the cellar, releasing Amy and locks him, his wife, and the child inside. The Taylors steal a pickup and flee, with Barr and his group in pursuit. Billy dies when his car explodes, and Al is killed after crashing into Barr's detached trailer. On a steel bridge Barr attempts to ram the couple's truck, and Amy's leg becomes trapped. Jeff boards the tractor unit, wrestles with Barr and, after a struggle involving a chain, hurls him over the edge. Amy releases the pickup's brake, dropping the dangling semi onto Barr and killing him. The Taylors wait on the bridge for the authorities to arrive.
Filming took place between April and June 1996.Breakdown was filmed on location inSacramento, California;Victorville, California;Pyramid Lake; andMoab, Utah.[2]
The score was written byBasil Poledouris, with contributions from Steve Forman, Judd Miller, Eric Colvin and Richard Marvin.
It was released as a limited edition of 3,000 units by LaLaLand Records in June 2011.[3] The release comprises a 3-CD set: the first CD contains the score as heard in the film, which contains material from additional composers. This is not 100% complete, omitting a few extremely low-key passages from the early scenes, nor is it chronological – some cues have been combined and re-ordered to maintain a listening experience.
The second CD contains an alternative early version of many cues by Poledouris that represent a different, far more orchestral approach to scoring the film (the score in the film stripped away many layers, and left mostly percussive and sound design elements for many cues.)
The third CD contains further alternates that demonstrate the changing nature of the music as scenes were re-scored.
Breakdown was released in the United States on May 2, 1997.[4] It debuted at first place at the box office with $12.3 million.[5] After initially opening to 2,108 theaters, the film later expanded to 2,348 theaters and grossed a total of $50.2 million in the United States and Canada.[6]
The review aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes reported that 83% of critics gave the film positive reviews based upon a sample of 58, with anaverage score of 7.2/10. The site's consensus describes it as "A brainy and suspenseful – if somewhat uneven – thriller".[7] AtMetacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 73 based on 19 reviews.[8]
Peter Stack of theSan Francisco Chronicle praised the film, "Breakdown use[s] old-fashioned ingenuity – plus a compelling star, a fast-paced mystery and a deadpan villain – to come up with a sizzler."[9]Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, calling it "taut, skillful and surgically effective".[10] Stephen Hunter ofThe Washington Post criticized Russell for not conveying a desperate husband willing to fight for his missing wife, writing "He does a lot of running around while making desperate faces, but he never projects a sense of deep rage. He never gets dangerous. Thus the movie is shorn of its one primitive gratification: the image of the civilized man who finds the Peruvian commando inside himself and lays waste to louts who have underestimated him."[11]
Paramount Home Entertainment released the film on a domesticVHS in October 1997, and aDVD followed in 1998.[12] It was released onLaserDisc in the US on October 14, 1997, with a subtitled Hong Kong LaserDisc being released in November 1997, via ERA Home Entertainment.[13] The following year, it also received LaserDisc releases in France, Germany, Japan and Singapore.[13] The French LaserDisc was handled by PFC Vidéo,[14] with the German LaserDisc being handled by Laser Paradise.[15] The French and German LaserDiscs both featured dubbed audio tracks, unlikePioneer LDC's Japanese LaserDisc, which featured the original audio track with Japanese subtitles.[16]
Breakdown was a co-production betweenDino De Laurentiis Company andSpelling Films, with distribution handled by Paramount Pictures. In the credits, Paramount Pictures and Spelling Films were listed as the joint copyright holders. At the time of the film's release, Paramount's parent companyViacom held a majority stake in Spelling Films, part ofSpelling Entertainment. They acquired their stake in Spelling Entertainment in 1994, through the purchase ofBlockbuster, which itself had a 67% stake in Spelling Entertainment since 1993. Viacom would go on to buy out the remaining stake in Spelling Entertainment during March 1999, which further solidified Paramount's ownership ofBreakdown.[17]
It received an AustralianBlu-ray release on February 24, 2021, from local distributor Imprint (under license from Paramount). This was the film's first ever Blu-ray release and initially limited to 1,500 copies.[18] A US Blu-ray was subsequently released by Paramount Home Entertainment on September 21, 2021, under its "Paramount Presents" line.[19] The US Blu-ray featured an newaudio commentary with Jonathan Mostow and Kurt Russell, and an new interview with Kathleen Quinlan. It also featured an alternate opening of the film and an isolated score.[20][21] Paramount Home Entertainment then released it on a4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 1, 2024.[22] This was part of itsParamount Scares line of releases (focusing onhorror films), even thoughBreakdown is generally categorized as a thriller film rather than as a horror film.[23]
The film was made available on the digital platformsApple TV,[24]Amazon Prime[25] andGoogle Play.[24] It was formerly available onFox Corporation's free streaming serviceTubi,[26] later being made available on Paramount's own free streaming servicePluto TV.[27] On March 4, 2021,Breakdown was made available on Paramount then-new subscription streaming serviceParamount+, as one of its inaugural launch titles,[28] and in Australia it was on the streaming service for the Paramount-owned broadcasterNetwork 10.[29] In Australia, it was also available onFetch TV.[30]
