Man (Kurt Russell) and his wife (Kathleen Quinlan) are moving to California. Their car breaks down somewhere in Arizona. A nice trucker comes by and offers to take them to a diner to call a tow truck. The wife goes and the man stays with the car. She never returns. Such is the premise for Breakdown. The rest of the movie is spent figuring out why she never returns, who the seemingly nice trucker is, and having Kurt Russell find his wife. The first thing I thought of when I saw the previews, was that this was a remake of The Vanishing. In some ways it's the same basic idea, but in The Vanishing, the whole reason behind it was more menacing. In Breakdown, when you find out why it's all happening, it's kind of a letdown. True, the movie is action packed, and one of those disturbing thrillers where you can't tell the good guys apart from the bad guys, but the plot is somewhat thin. It's still a good film, where something is always happening so it keeps your attention, but all I kept thinking is, Is that the only reason they're doing this? However, if you can get past that, you'll have a good time.

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