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typical day in L.A. traffic...?

R

Adrien Brody, Caroline Dhavernas

Man:  “Are you a good dog…or are you a bad dog?”

A man (Brody) awakens, pinned in a wrecked car in the bottom of a remote ravine.  He has no memory of who he is or how he got there.  As he struggles to survive, clues to his identity start to emerge.

Do you like Adrien Brody?  Can you stand to watch him for an hour and a half?  Because if you can’t, I’d suggest you just skip this one.  Basically it’s like Cast Away, but without the Helen Hunt bookends.

I happen to like Adrien Brody, so I was fine with him being the main focus of the movie.  Of course, I was also pleasantly surprised when Caroline Dhavernas (of Wonderfalls) showed up as the mysterious woman that Brody keeps having visions/dreams about.  Does she have something to do with the events that got him in this predicament?  And what about the dead guy in the back seat??

Going any more in depth about the plot would be giving away too much.  But, I will say that I found it a tad bit predictable.  There’s really only two directions it could go, one more likely than the other.  Still, the movie did manage to throw in a couple of little twists that kept things interesting.

It’s Brody that drives the movie, though.  He just seems to have a way, a certain look he can give, that automatically makes me feel sympathy for him.  Even when you’re not exactly sure how you should be feeling about his character, you’re still rooting for him to find a way to crawl out of that ravine.  Of course, he’s so badly injured that it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him.  In addition to a broken, mangled leg, he seems to have possibly broken his nose, and when you’re Adrien Brody, that’s a pretty big deal.

It’s all filmed up in the Pacific Northwest, in the Vancouver area I believe, and the scenery certainly adds to the appeal of the movie.  The director, Michael Greenspan (in what seems to be his first full length feature), has managed to make this mountainous forest both beautiful and isolated in a sort of creepy way.  Though it doesn’t seem like THAT bad of a place to get stranded.  I mean, at least it’s not the desert or in the snow.  This place has pretty trees, rain water to drink, worms to eat, and deadly mountain lions.  What’s not to like?  Aside from the deadly mountain lions.

While this isn’t an instant classic, and a few aspects of it could have been handled better, it’s a fun what-would-you-do type situation, as well as a good little (though predictable) mystery.  I was a little annoyed by how long it took him to actually try more methods of extracting himself from the car (3 days to finally try to pry the door open??), and I wish there had been a few less plot conveniences, but all in all, I had a pretty good time watching this one.

Avoid mountain lions.

10 – 1.6 for being a little bit too predictable – 1 for some plot conveniences and other annoyances = 7.4