/

Breakdown at 92YTribeca (Monday, 08/15/11, 8pm), Presented by Keith Uhlich

There are many questions posed in life.

Breakdown at 92YTribeca (Monday, 08/15/11, 8pm), Presented by Keith Uhlich
Photo: Paramount Pictures

There are many questions posed in life. For our purposes, only one really matters: “$90,000 or 90,000 donuts?” Choose wisely or the girl dies! … Suddenly alarmed? Fearful? Cowering in your seat? Think how you’ll feel after I screen one of my favorite thrillers—the 1997 Kurt Russell vehicle Breakdown—this Monday, August 15th, 2011 at 8pm at 92YTribeca. The event blurb:

Clean-cut yuppie Jeff Taylor (Kurt Russell) and his Bennetton-wardrobed spouse Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) are driving cross-country in their shiny red Jeep Cherokee. They break down somewhere out in John Ford country. A helpful trucker (J.T. Walsh) gives the lady a lift to a nearby telephone … and she doesn’t come back. At first Jeff thinks they just got their wires crossed. But he soon realizes he’s in the midst of an elaborate kidnapping plot: rednecks with rifles come out of the barren badlands, cellphone reception is nonexistent and no one, it seems, can be trusted. Director Jonathan Mostow—later to helm Terminator 3—keeps us on edge throughout this taut thriller, which builds to a spectacularly destructive, and literally cliffhanging, finale. Russell is pitch-perfect as the everyman forced by circumstance to go from meek to mercenary. But the film belongs to the late, great Walsh, who gives a master class in villainy as the chillingly subdued lead kidnapper.

This is my inaugural presentation at 92YT, and I couldn’t be more excited. Breakdown holds a special place in my moviegoing heart, for reasons I’ll expand on in my introduction (I’ll also be around for some in-the-lobby chat post-screening). Hope a number of you (readers, friends, et al) can attend. If you’d like to purchase tickets ahead of time, click here.

This article was originally published on The House Next Door.

Advertisement

Keith Uhlich

Keith Uhlich's writing has been published in The Hollywood Reporter, BBC, and Reverse Shot, among other publications. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.