Brake (2012) Film Review & Trailer — C

Brake Film Review , 2012: Rated R – Horror!

Subtitle: The Only Way Out is to Give In
other genres: man alone

Who to look for:

Stephen Dorff – Don’t recall him from any other movies. He’s excellent. The other actors, mostly voiceovers, not so much. They sounded like an acting class.

Main Plot – The Man in the Lucite Coffin

Secret Service agent Jeremy Reins wakes up to find himself in a plastic box in the trunk of a car. Claustrophobic, much? He’ll be in there for most of the movie, so better get used to it.

I like movies with the hero on his own, fighting terrible odds: Alien, 127 Hours (so upsetting!), Castaway, etc. This one does not disappoint.

He is given 2 ways to communicate: a CB radio, and later he manages to get an old flip phone. Someone else is also in a man-made coffin, and they share info on the CB. Eventually he is able to reach others in the Secret Service, hear some news in the Capitol, and he apologizes to his estranged wife, Molly.

The terrorists want to know where the President’s bunker is. This isn’t personal, Jeremy, it’s political!

Anyway, it’s very intense and scary. Be aware — it’s similar to Buried (2010). Movies this intense can be more upsetting than any action film.

Unanswered questions, spoilers and Ending:

Spoiler: Even as he hears other people dying, Jeremy says “I took an oath,” and won’t reveal it.

He’s stupid. The President’s life isn’t worth more than other peoples’ lives.

I rated it

2.5 stars. It’s certainly better than the average Netflix, but it’s one-note…and I hated the ending.

No questions, all is revealed in the ending-  he was set up, and so were we, Moviepooper called the other characters “sleeper agents”. In any case, I never relaxed at the ending, which I HATED, btw. And it’s pretty shocking that no one was on his side, not even his wife. It gives you a bad feeling – dying alone in every sense. His wife is the B word as she gives him the final blow.

[Comment on youtube for Brake, 2020: One of the best movies that year! When you look up Cliffhanger plot twist in the dictionary this movie pops up!!! 2020 and this movie still holds it ground!!]

Other Critiques on Brake

NPR calls it A wild ride with plotholes. (Is that a funny from NPR? Potholes. :)) He didn’t like the ending, either.

Cramped-quarters movies like Brake are so valued in Hollywood these days they have their own subgenre: All hail the “contained thriller.”

The thing handles great on the highway, but that’s not what counts once it flies off the road.

Um, yeah, okay? Anyway, I didn’t think there were plotholes, in spite of his joke.

I don’t usually go to the NY Times for movie reviews, but this popped up. The reviewer thought about its obvious similarity to Buried, too, and thought the movie collapsed at the end. I laughed out loud at this part:

“It has no logic or credibility, and its paranoid view of Washington is too absurd to spur even a second thought.”

I think we’re all a little paranoid now. But typical New York Times, shoring up the White House and all DC!

Google: 72% Liked. For Google, which is mostly people who don’t think much, that’s about a C.

From Amazon commentators

All along I was expecting the twist ending. But what I didn’t see coming was the double-twist. So I’m going against the grain here and commending how it ended. It caught me. I LIKED IT!

Props to the performance that Stephen Dorff did in this movie! He had such little room to work but pulled off a truly good performance!

That’s a Wrap

I gave it a C because it’s a very good 2 hours of suspense. But you won’t think about it afterwards, and the ending is disappointing. Also, later I got it a little mixed up with Buried …weird they came out almost together.

What did you think?