Breakdown 

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When Kurt Russell's yuppie 4x4 breaks down in the desert Southwest, he sends his wife off with a trucker to fetch help, and she never returns. What follows is parts Hitchcock, parts action thriller, and a whole lot of fun. The writers did us ALL a favor by not bothering to provide the characters with any development (for which I thank them heartily)—all you know is that they're married, and she's missing. No soundtrack swells, no subtexts involving cute kids, just straight ahead, no-screwing-around drama. Kurt Russell still has it as an action hero, and J.T. Walsh is suitably scary as the trucker who abducts his wife. File this one as a charter member of 1997's Pleasant Surprise department.

—Ian Williams

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