Wrecked (2010)

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.

I read a few of the reviews on here about this movie, and they gave the impression that this movie left too many unanswered questions and the ending was not satisfying. I don't know what questions these reviews were referring to, but for me the ending was pretty much self explanatory.The acting was brilliant, the direction, the location and scenes were all done really well. The story was adequately thought provoking too.To sum it up, the movie felt like an experience, not just a visual entertainment. 7 out of 10 for me!Having said that it's not a movie for everyone, if you like movies where you can feel the character's environment then you'll like this, but if you prefer lots of dialogues, lots of people and lots of action then you probably wanna watch something else.

Let's face it - this film is dull. I honestly think I have wasted 90 minutes of my life watching this movie. It's not that it is a BAD movie, it's more like it is one in which nobody tried very hard. But first, a defence: Adrien Brody does enough to allow us to sympathise with his character. We want to find out what has happened and who he is. The photography is pretty good too, but even a monkey can get some decent shots of a nature background. The problems come with the story, and the six foot wide gaping plot holes that tag along with it. Firstly, it is boring. More boring than I can say. As mentioned, if it weren't for Adrien Brody's acting (which has been a damn sight better in the past), I would have turned it off. Nothing happens, and when it does happen there is no excitement, no thrill, just stupidity followed by blind luck. The worst thing about this movie is the questions that are left at the end: we find out what happened and who he is, but: 1. If he drove off the road, why does he not look for the road rather than crawling around the forest for days? 2. What happened to the guy in the cave? And if it is what I think it is, why could he not fend it off with a big rifle? 3. We see four men in the car when he causes the crash, but one man is left on the road. How did he fall out of the car, how did that kill him and how did no one see him as they were driving past? 4. In a forest full of trees and wood, he could not have made himself a crutch to help him walk rather than crawl around everywhere?A film that leaves you with that many questions is simply not worth your time. If you want to watch Brody flex his acting muscles, watch The Pianist again. If you want to see a movie with a good story... well, you can do better than this.

Imagine for a minute that you wake up bludgeoned, battered, bloody and bruised pinned in a steel death trap at the base of a mountain with no recollection of how or why you are there, with the only sign of humanity being an unknown corpse in the back seat. This "in medias res" beginning is how Director Michael Greenspan and Writer Christopher Dodd start off their debut feature film titled Wrecked.Wrecked is a story of a man (played by Adrian Brody) that has just awoken in the after math of a major car accident in what appears to be a ravine with only a corpse (and his deteriorating mind) to accompanying him. After a days worth of struggle Brody finally frees himself from the constraints of the wreckage only to crawl through hellacious terrain while trying to ward off haunting hallucinations that have manifested from guilt of an incident he can't even remember.Brody's performance is nothing short of spectacular especially considering the sheer screen time and lack of dialogue he has in the film, however this didn't stop him from portraying an ineffable range of emotion throughout. Brody isn't the only star on deck however, Cinematographer James Liston emphasizes this by employing juxtaposed high and low angle shot's to help shroud Brody's already enigmatic mind. The story however seem to have a couple "hiccups" that take away from the overall verisimilitude of the film which can be a deal breaker for some. This should not deter anyone from the film, it is well worth the time.