Wrecked

Wrecked is an interesting little low budget film that has a fairly promising premise that should attract the viewers (because the poster certainly won't).

A man wakes up in a car wreck in the woods with no idea of who he is or why he got there, with his only company being that of the dead body in the seat next to him. It soon becomes apparent that help is not coming and he has to get out of the car. But once he's free, his troubles have only just begun, as he finds out that he is not alone in the woods.

There is a lot to like about this little film. Adrien Brody does a great job of displaying how painful and lonely it would be if one was trapped in this particular situation, and of course the film rests on his acting and the great imagery and camera work. The film never becomes too slow, and there is always a new little plot point or clue that leads the viewer on.

Of course one should not go into this film expecting a sordid tale of survival and battles with mountain lions. Instead, what we have is a psychological exploration, where the woods serve as the back drop for all of the character's guilts and desires, and soon we are doubting what is real and what isn't. Think of J.G. Ballard's "Concrete Island" or Stephen King's "Gerald's Game".

While it is ultimately weak with a so-so story, "Wrecked" is worth watching at least once just to enjoy the work of Brody and the fluid flow of the film.

127 Hours [2010] and Wrecked [2011] contain similar plots and big name actors (James Franco and Adrien Brody). They are set in a minimal location with a suffocating feel. One is based on a true story; the other is fiction. During the long middle stretch of movie, 127 Hours substitutes emotional highs and lows in the score instead of conflict/action, which Wrecked does a much better job at. A raw comparison of the plots gives 127 Hours a harsh reality, while Wrecked puts us inside Brody's mind of amnesia and hallucination. They end the same, but with a little help from Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros, 127 Hours manages to finish on a higher note. One was nominated for best picture, and one gets a shoddy rating on IMDb.

I do not believe the term, "Based on a true story," can cover up moments of less perfection. True stories are not commercial box office hits. That's how "based on a true story" came to be, to fantasize and fictionalize the true story into film mythology. The writer's job is to make a story's conflict much like a concert. If a story contains all truth and is boring, there should be rewrites until we are moved, with bits of conflict that can sensationalize the boring truth.

For this reason, where 127 Hours lags, Wrecked excels, and where 127 Hours must stick to a certain blue print, Wrecked can explore the mind of the protagonist in great depth. Plan on seeing an underrated, captivating, Adrien Brody indie in 2011.

"Who's Raymond Plazey?" After waking up in a mangled car in the bottom of a ravine with a broken leg the man (Brody) has no idea how he got there. Doing everything he can he tries to escape the car and find help. This movie, much like "Buried" and "Castaway" involves pretty much one character the entire time. Very little dialog and prolonged scenes of trying to open a door make this a hard film to get through. I'm not saying this is a bad movie, but it is very, very slow moving. The acting by Brody is very good and it's worth watching to see him. Much like the movie "Memento" the lead character is going about his life trying to figure out who he is and how he got there. Unlilke "Memento" there is really not much that sucks you in and makes you want to keep watching. I got through it, but it was a struggle. Overall, a very slow moving one character movie that is watchable, and only because Brody does a good job. I give it a C.

Would I watch again? - Nope

*Also try - Bruied & Memento

This is a very uncomfortable film. Now I don't mean it is bad. I mean this is the type of film you can feel and you start to feel what the main character is going through. The whole movie is based around one main character played by Adrien Brody. He did an excellent job. The movie starts with him waking up in a car that had fallen off a small cliff. He is alive, but the people around him are dead. Through the whole film you are trying to piece together what happened. By the end you figure it out, but there are some things they leave untouched on purpose. Let the viewers mind come up with its own conclusions. This movie takes on a different type of scary. Like a real life scary. I remember a few scenes that when they happened, I couldn't help but shake my head and think much that would really suck in real life. The writers of the film made a good story and the director did a good job with little budget they probably had. This was a very nice suspenseful film.

This is going to be a very short review because, frankly, there isn't much to say about Wrecked. The first 20 to 30 minutes of the film consists of Adrien Brody trapped in a wrecked car deep in the forest… For the remaining 65 minutes, we get to see Brody crawling around the forest / wilderness. Throw in a hallucination here and a mountain lion there, and that's the whole film. Not too entertaining, even with the few appearances of the mountain lion – and that says a lot about the approach director Michael Greenspan took with the film.

Despite Adrien being a great actor and doing his absolute best with the script, the film never really delivers on the suspense or the thrills. It's a one-man show that goes absolutely nowhere, and that's not Brody's fault. Greenspan never picks up the pace of the film; he uses flashbacks and hallucinations ineffectively; and tries to build suspense around a story-line that just doesn't have any.

If you want to see a great survival film with few characters that gets it right, watch Frozen, 127 Hours with James Franco, or the classic Cast Away with Tom Hanks.