I couldn’t help but laugh at the trailer for Brake from director Gabe Torres and starring Stephen Dorff. It may end up being a perfectly fine film, but the lack of originality here is alarming, at least based on the newly released trailer.
However, before we get to that first let me offer the synopsis:
Jeremy Reins (Dorff) is about to have a very bad day. He wakes up in total darkness, confused and disoriented. The only light comes from the blood-red digital numbers ticking away above his head. Jeremy quickly realizes he’s in trouble. It’s hard to breath. He can barely move. And no one will answer his cries for help. Then, he hears the sound of an engine and it all becomes clear…he’s trapped in the trunk of a moving car.
As his captors reveal themselves and their motives, Jeremy realizes he won’t be set free until he gives up the whereabouts of “Roulette,” a secret location where the U.S. President is taken in the event of a terrorist attack.
Now, with the set up, let’s backtrack and imagine the steps it took to put this picture together. A film, that was impressively shot in only 11 days.
STEP ONE
You begin with a movie where someone is trapped and alone with a cell phone and terrorists threatening them. You know, Buried…
STEP TWO
Brake was written by Timothy Mannion and I imagine the following duel in his mind while he was writing the screenplay:
Left brain: “Well, we can’t do Buried exactly, they’ll be wise to us copying. What can we trap this guy in that isn’t a coffin underground?”
This is when the right brain chimes in, “Did you see that movie Wrecked with Adrien Brody? He wasn’t necessarily ‘trapped’ but he was in a car crash at the bottom of a hill and was stuck for most of the movie.”
Left brain: “What does Adrien Brody have to do with this? And we don’t have a hill!”
Right brain: “No, the car idea. We could put him in the trunk of a car! We wouldn’t be copying since Brody was never in the trunk!”
Left brain: “Brilliant!”
STEP THREE
Now, just for a bit of flavor, Timothy needed to add something scary. He already seems to have been inspired by the Saw franchise when it comes to set design, but he need something more.
Buried had a snake, Frozen had wolves, 127 Hours had a rock and Wrecked had a guy seeing things. For Brake it would appear he watched The Wicker Man and found true inspiration in one of its most iconic scenes.
Now you add all of that up, substitute Ryan Reynolds with Stephen Dorff and you get the trailer for Brake, which will hit hit Video on Demand on February 17 and limited theaters after that on March 23. You in?
