Jonathan Mostow, before he went on to helm the big-budget U-571 and the even bigger budgeted Terminator 3, brought out this taut little thriller and cemented a reputation he's yet to really live up to (though some would disagree about that). His film has that tag-line, but it's not entirely accurate, even though it has a very familiar and eerily recognizable threat at the core: the outsiders coming in to a territory that is very close knit and practically inbred, where one wrong step could cost you and/or your loved ones lives. In this case, Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan are the married couple caught in the cross-hairs of kidnapping, blackmail, and ultimately vengeance. They're moving from Massachusets to San Diego, and driving on through the desert they get side-swiped by a car, then later on after a near-altercation at a pit-stop, they move on only for the couple's car to breakdown. Help comes in the form of a trucker, who offers help for to drive the wife to get a tow-truck. No need for the truck, anyway, because the car didn't have much wrong with it...but what about the wife, Amy?

From there on in, Mostow takes Breakdown into the realm of paranoid thriller, then into just full-on chase/action/revenge/chase again picture. One might wonder if there could be a more noirish quality to it if the wife actually left for a reason other than abduction, though the path that Mostow takes the story is fine as it is. He keeps things simple in the story sense, with elements of the Western thrown in, but also makes it very much character-based as well. Russell's performance as Jeff Taylor is kind of the opposite of his recent turn as Stuntman Mike in Grindhouse: starting off as the average-Joe who tries to be polite, albeit from a yuppie background, he gets put to the test by the enormity of the situation, and finally becomes a real take-no-prisoners hero. Towards the very end it almost reaches the point of being TOO much of hitting over the head with payback, and there are little things regarding the nature of Red Barr (JT Walsh, great villainous presence in a real sinister, calm way) and his ties to the town as to whether or not things are really as controlling as they might be (i.e. the bank scene, which is perfectly acted, though not entirely feasible in the paranoid sense).

But all this aside, what Breakdown remains ten years after is a competent, un-pretentious thrill-ride where the dialog is never too heavy, the action is packed with real stunts and few special effects, and some of the brighter moments for Russell in recent years (or rather, the last ten). It knows what it is, and has the professional temerity of a cult effort.

Successful businessman Jeff Taylor (a typically on the ball performance from the always dependable Kurt Russell) and his wife Amy (a solid, but underused Kathleen Quinlin) are driving from Massachusetts to California in their expensive new car via the scenic dusty'n'desolate desert country backroads route. The car breaks down. Amy hitches a ride with a friendly trucker (J.T. Walsh, who's magnificent as usual). When Jeff later tries to find Amy, he realizes that she's been abducted and he'll have to do whatever it takes to get her back alive and in one piece.

Directed in briskly efficient fashion by Jonathan Mostow, powered along by Basil Poledouris' thundering, bone-rattling score, Doug Milesome's crisp, accomplished cinematography, and an explosive, gut-kickingly effective metal-demolishing climactic car chase, "Breakdown" 's basic plot liberally lifts elements from such diverse sources as "Duel," "The Vanishing," "The Hitcher," and "Road Games," but luckily what the derivative ragbag script lacks in originality is compensated for by an uncommonly spare, streamlined and unpretentious sense of lean, linear, to-the-point no-nonsense narrative economy. Characterizations are kept to a minimum (although the late, great, sorely missed Walsh, big, bad and brawny greaseball supreme M.C. Gainey, gangly Jack Noseworthy, and grizzled blubberball Ritch Brinkley still scuzz it up something sweet as the evil leering hicks while familiar faces Rex Linn and Jack McGhee contribute cool bits as an earnest, but useless sheriff and a scruffy diner counterman, respectively),there are no dreary, dragged-out expository lulls to be found, and both the zippy pacing and grimy tension are finely honed to sharp, stinging points, thereby resulting in a neatly bracing and suspenseful medium budget thriller which became a surprise box office hit. This is the kind of movie they regrettably just don't make too much anymore: a tightly plotted, slickly mounted and expertly done straight down the line with no unnecessary flashy trimmings or fancy-shmancy highbrow messages B picture from a major studio that's actually very good of its type.

Kurt Russell and his wife (not Goldie Hawn but someone else) are moving from Massachusetts to San Diego. In the middle of the desert, they break down and become victims of an elaborate conspiracy to kidnap, murder and steal from unsuspected travellers. But Kurt Russell doesn't put up with your crap: he's Michael Douglas in a mullet.

The film started out fairly slowly, with the couple being stranded and Russell wandering around looking for his wife. So in the first half you might not want to watch when you're a bit tired. But all this will come back later, so pay attention. The cops, the diner patrons and the truckers all have an important part to play when this blows wide open.

This is one of the most intense Kurt Russell films out there, at least without being silly or science fiction. No John Carpenter or Snake Plissken here. Just a man who goes to the edge when the woman he loves is gone. Jumping on moving semi trailers, getting in gun fights, kidnapping kidnappers. Russell gets more and more bold as the film goes on (which makes the film sort of like "Falling Down", but that's the only way they are similar).

Not sure what else you need to know since that's the gist: Kurt Russell getting angry. And without giving anything away, let me just say that if you like the movie you'll love the ending because it goes way over the top (in a good way).

Great movie for three guys and a keg to watch. Not sure about it being a good date movie, but it's romantic, so who knows?