It's hard to believe that a major studio could be behind something as trashily enjoyable as BREAKDOWN. We're talkin' Grade-A 70s junk here folks, lacing together the best elements of Spielberg's DUEL, Boorman's DELIVERANCE, and the original version of George Sluzier's THE VANISHING. Alright, so that last one wasn't a 70s flick, but you get the idea.

The setup is seductively simple, in a New World sorta way: a couple (Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan) get stranded in the desert while moving to the Left Coast. Mrs. Yuppie hops a ride with a trucker (JT Walsh/RIP -- her first mistake) while hubby hangs out by their Jeep Cherokee for a tow. Once he fixes the car, Mr. Yuppie tracks his wife down, only to find that she never arrived at the local diner, the trucker denies picking her up, and a gang of slack-jawed yokels are lookin' to bust a cap in his ass!

Much of BREAKDOWN's on-screen success can be attributed to director Jonathan Mostow (who also wrote the story and co-wrote the script) and Kurt Russell. Briskly paced, tightly edited, and corralled to a taught 93 minutes, the flick moves with a nifty economy of motion. Unfortunately, this type of restraint is the exception, not the rule, in a world dominated by bloated major studio flicks clocking in at an unnecessary two- to three-hours.

And Russell, one of the screen's most comfortable and appealing male leads, delivers another top-notch performance as the bewildered husband who will do anything to get his wife back. Russell is starting to excel as an actor who can anchor a film based on a sketchy idea (this and EXECUTIVE DECISION immediately spring to mind) and give it a believable punch a less-comfortable actor would find out of their grasp.