Brake: Critic Reviews

"Brake" is a full-scale paranoid nightmare with back-to-back double-whammy endings.

Dorff's mannered Bruce Willis affect seems as insincere as the script, which helplessly loses credibility as info accrues and the narrative unpeels.

Talk about being boxed in: This thriller is half-"24," half-"Buried" and, despite a few twists, unable to move anywhere.

Your mileage enjoying Brake may vary, but even if you spot the final destination coming, it's a pleasant enough joyride.

It is amazing how much hair-raising action and fluid movement this film captures in the confined interior of a car trunk, or how many mood shifts Mr. Dorff conveys in a performance that can only be called multi-dimensional.

Brake may not be the kind of film that Dorff's thesp character in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere is pining for, but the actor fully commits to the arduous demands of the part.

The whole claustrophobic one-man show feels like we've been here before, and with better material.

While the film is suspenseful for awhile, it ultimately becomes a let down because of a stretched out story and an absurd ending.

Most of it is a decent film despite it being stretched out, but most of it being good just doesn't cut it.

It's a clever B-movie that has a number of fun twists up its sleeve.

...a second-rate carbon-copy of Rodrigo Cortes' vastly superior Buried.

Over 95% of "Brake" takes place in the trunk of a car. But, despite the confines or perhaps because of them, it's a decent enough thriller.

In a movie like this, almost everything depends on the lead actor -- and Stephen Dorff does not disappoint. He turns in a splended 'confined' performance here.

There are simply too many manipulative gimmicks to generate any emotional investment in the outcome.

Dorff is stellar and the film builds some tension but a bit too much required suspension of disbelief, some plot holes, weak dialogue, and two increasingly silly twist endings ultimately sink the piece.

There are plenty of gripping moments, as well as a few silly ones - bees get involved at one point, presumably to please Wicker Man fans. And the ride as a whole is at the very least exciting to take part in.

Dorff and Torres make a lot out of very little, always keeping the audience aware of the larger world outside the small, dark space in which they've trapped us.

an idea for a short extended far beyond its creative shelf life

Works as a budget suspense experience, reaching enough boiling points to entertain, but not enough to block out the ridiculous ending.

If we're never drawn in far enough to wonder what we might do in a Plexiglass box at the end of the world, Dorff can sell stock action-hero lines with enough moody grit to hold our attention.

The situation itself is simply too absurd for us to accept, right from the start. And the more it goes on, the harder it is to stay onboard.

[Dorff] spends most of the movie confusing tough-guy stoicism with simple inertness, despite the occasional Jack Bauer-style yell.

Stephen Dorff's energetic performance cannot compensate for the minimalism of the plot.

Until its pair of ludicrous twist endings, which complicates its message and logistics in ways that make little sense, Gabe Torres's Brake plays like a more simplistic version of Buried tailored specifically to a hawkish right-wing crowd.