Brake (2012) Film Review & Trailer — C

Brake Film Review , 2012: Rated R – Horror!

Subtitle: The Only Way Out is to Give In
other genres: Lone survivor, horror

Who to look for:

Stephen Dorff – Don’t recall him from any other movies. He’s excellent. The other actors, mostly voiceovers, not so good. 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 very similar to Buried (2010). Movies this intense can get your heart beating faster than any action film.

Unanswered questions, SPOILERS and Ending:

Spoiler and comment: Even as he hears other people dying, Jeremy says “I took an oath,” and won’t reveal the hiding place of the President. 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 here; all is revealed in the ending-  he was set up, and so were we! It has a twist!

Moviepooper called the other characters “sleeper agents”. What does that mean? In any case, I never relaxed at the ending, which I HATED, btw. Everyone Jeremy “talks to” is just acting by his kidnappers. The bad guys are listening to him, giving him false hope, lying, and basically torturing him.

And it’s pretty shocking that no one was actually helping him, not even his wife, who apparently was bought off by the bad guys. 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”, because his glass coffin is in the back of a car!. :)) 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 pointed out 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, defending the White House and all of DC! (Speaking from the future…wait until you see what the Times does when Trump is in office!)

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.

Where to find it

I saw it on Netflix, but doesn’t seem to be there at the moment.
On Prime Video (How to add Prime Video)
There’s some kind of unusual Amazon deal going on now, if you’re under 25. It ends Sept. 30.
Best price DVD.

What did you think?