Broken (Unrated) DVD Review
Posted by Neil Borenstein on 11.23.2007
A movie that so badly wants to be better than SAW doesn't even come close!
BROKEN (UNRATED) DVD REVIEW
Cast
Nadja Brand: Hope
Eric Colvin: The Man
Abbey Stirling: Holly
Megan Van Kerro: Jennifer
Atesh Salih: Patrick Bateman
DVD Information
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Region: Region 1
Number of Discs: 1
Packaging: Slipcase
Studio: The Weinstein Company
DVD Release Date: September 25, 2007
Run Time: 90 minutes
Specs: Dolby Digital 5.1 – English, English and Spanish Subtitles; Widescreen
I got the feeling that my experience with Broken was not going to be a good one when one of the previews for an upcoming release prior to the film was for a movie about killer sheep. Though previews are not always an indictor of a movie that follows, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth and makes you question what the main feature is all about. Well, after watching Broken, I think I’d rather see the flick about the killer sheep.
To be honest, I’m not really sure why I needed to sit through an hour and a half for a movie that could have been played out in probably 10 or 15 minutes. There was absolutely zero substance to this movie, and I’d very much like the 90 minutes of my life spent watching this abomination back.
In the movie, a man (Eric Colvin) who lives in the woods gets his jollies off of kidnapping women and forcing them to be submissive to his every whim. At first, he gives his victims an initiation. He locks them in a casket for a day or two, then digs them up and opens the casket. He knocks them out and inserts a razor into their stomach and then stitches them up. He proceeds to tie their neck to a tree with a rope, with the victim forced to balance on a tree stump and wobbly piece of the trunk on top of it. Once the victim regains consciousness, they have to decide whether to unstitch themselves and dig into their bodies for the razor so that they may cut the rope, or just stay there and die. If they choose to cut themselves, they are asked if they want to continue with his little game. If they choose no, they die. If they choose yes, they become a slave to the man.
The first victim we see at the beginning of the movie chooses the former.
The protagonist in the film is Hope (Nadja Brand), a single mother who loves her daughter but needs to get out there and find a companion. After arriving home from a date, she greets the babysitter, who we’re left to assume is a very close friend. She checks on her daughter, Jennifer (Megan Van Kerro). And then seemingly out of nowhere, there she is, screaming while trapped inside of a coffin. We have no idea how she got there or why she was chosen, nor will we ever. She’s just, well, there.
She goes through that whole cycle of initiation and chooses to continue, perhaps the first to make such a decision because of her daughter. Thus begins the fun of being the man’s slave. She is initially resistant, only wanting to know where her daughter is and if she’s safe. But the man tells her he’s her family now, and that she has no daughter. And over the next 41 days, she is mainly responsible for tending to a garden the man put her in charge of.
She tries to escape on numerous occasions, but she fails miserably and it becomes logical that the only way for her to really get through this mess is to just deal with it and live out the rest of her life in misery by doing what the man tells her to do.
By day nine, another girl, Holly (Abbey Stirling), joins the party. She is largely irrelevant outside of being the distraction that allowed Hope to eventually break free. This entire movie, however, is mainly based around Hope and the man, and Hope’s want to get out to find her daughter.
The one problem with that plot, though, is that it really drags. This movie is not at all suspenseful. It’s rather a day-by-day account of the interaction between Hope and her capturer – a sadistic individual trying to almost start his own civilization through the forced servitude of his captured prey. But it’s done in such a dragged out and boring manner. It’s also fairly repetitive. How many times is he going to threaten her? How many times is she going to try and escape from him? How many freakin’ times is she going to ask about her GOD damn daughter until she realizes he’s not going to tell her anything about her?
The acting is rather lackluster. I will admit that I thought Colvin did a pretty decent job at times, but even he turned me off to the movie for most of it. Brand was nothing special, either. She could scream like crazy, but I otherwise found her too dramatic. And she was the one these guys were trying to sell the movie on.
Outside of those two, nobody really spoke in the movie, so dialogue was lacking a bit, as well.
Another thing with a film of this nature was that while gory at some points, I don’t think it was gory enough. Yes, there were certainly some scenes that would make some uneasy folks turn their heads. But the way Broken is advertised, essentially as a torture flick, there should have been more torture scenes. Maybe I’m being picky, but the worst part of the movie involved a woman taking a razor out of her stomach and another having her tongue cut out (which you really only see the after effects of). I think there should have been more, as was the case with most of the elements in Broken.
Now, being a low-budget film, Broken might need to be given a very small amount of leeway. There is never an excuse to hype an absolutely atrocious film, but when money is an object, a film will sometimes need a longer leash. They couldn’t afford to use well-known actors, and really couldn’t afford to use many actors. Their crew was very limited. They also couldn’t afford to shoot in a variety of locations, as pretty much the entirety of the movie took place in the woods. And keeping things simple in whatever the hell kind of plot they put into the movie allowed for them to work within their boundaries.
But there is still room for creativity inside a small-budget work. And literally taking a story, that of Hope and the man during her capture, and stretching it into an hour and half film is a waste, especially since the events taking place during that capture were not at all creative. Directors Adam Mason and Simon Boyes really could have, and should have, done a lot more with this. And if money was that much of an object, they really shouldn’t have made a film at all.
For me, the only good thing that can be taken from Broken is the DVD packaging. Yes – the DVD packaging. The DVD case is packaged inside of a slipcase that creatively reveals a razor inside of a person’s body when the two ends of the case are pulled.
The case also happens to sport a quote from a Web site that states, “Broken makes SAW look like a children’s movie.” Unfortunately, instead of displaying a completely false quote, the creators of Broken should have focused on learning from the success of SAW and why it’s one of the most popular films of the last four years. SAW actually had a plot worth watching for well over an hour, was suspenseful, had pretty good acting, and left the viewer thinking and always wanting more. Broken was horribly written, horribly acted and left me wishing I had never popped the DVD into my player in the first place.
The Audio
A good deal of this movie has some sound issues. I found myself having to turn the volume up to hear any kind of dialogue throughout the movie. But when there was screaming, which there was a lot of, it blasted and I need to turn the film down. While I suppose that should be the case – screaming louder than dialogue – there needed to be a better balance of that in this movie. The difference in sound was far too much.
Score: 6.0
The Video
Originally, I didn’t like the video quality of the movie. But it did grow on me. It looks a bit cheap and low budget, but I don’t really think it takes away from movie in any sense. It’s clearly not a Hollywood production, but the less vivid scenery enhances the movie a bit. It’s a dark movie and should have a darker feel. It adds to the concept of the film, so I can’t really knock it all that much.
Score: 7.0
Extras
Feature Commentary With Writer/Directors Adam Mason and Simon Boyes – The movie may be viewed with optional commentary.
I Want You To Break: The Making Of Broken – We start off with the writers/directors Adam Mason and Simon Boyes bitching about wasting their times on prior work that were eventually ripped off or completely messed up. They decided to just write up a script on their own and work within their limited resources to produce something, anything. Nadja Brand and Eric Colvin also chime in on this, as well as a variety of other topics, including the first day of filming, the crew (which was small, yet most of the people involved couldn’t remember who else was involved in the making of the film), problems in shooting, deleted scenes, misogynists, how it ended, distribution, Germane Greer and bad reviews (hmm … Note to Adam Mason, who gets annoyed at “geeks wanking off in their parents’ basement” who give bad reviews – make a film that’s actually good and you won’t get bad reviews!). The basic gist of the feature is that everybody involved had a horrible time making this film. And what’s really interesting is that when they discussed deleted scenes, they pointed out a lot of material that was left out which may have actually made the movie fairly decent. They truly messed up there. Sadly, this feature was actually more entertaining than the movie itself. (49:27)
An Interview With Leading Actress Nadja Brand – This is an interview with Nadja Brand from Belgium. She’s asked questions by two interviews, who basically just touch on all things involved in shooting the film and her other works. They did a pretty lousy job at asking questions. The audience gets a chance to ask questions, too. 22:30
Stills Gallery – A bunch of still photos, comprising of both behind the scenes and in-film material.
Trailer - The trailer for Broken. 2:43
The 411: Even as a very low-budget movie, Broken is extraordinarily disappointing. The basic premise of the film – a female victim’s interaction with the man forcing her into slavery – is intriguing. But it’s never really played out to its fullest and lacks elements of suspense, gore and even good acting. The “Making of … ” feature is fairly interesting because it points out some scenes that were left out, which really needed to be left in to make the film more enjoyable and less pointless. I strongly urge anybody considering checking out this movie and/or purchasing the DVD to avoid doing so at all costs. It’s a huge waste of time and money, and you’re better off spending both doing something else, anything else!
