Have Cheetah,Will View #187 – “Wrecked” (2011)

It’s 12:14 am
stormy

Enjoying a line of thunderstorms rolling across the sky this evening. Perfect weather to hunker down and break out another IFC Midnight film.  Quite frankly after watching the subpar “Darkness Rising”,I wanted to review another movie to get the bitter taste out of our mouths and when the cheetah brought “Wrecked” from our BluRay section up,I knew he was thinking the same thing.

The film opens with a bloodied man slowly gaining consciousness. As he slowly comes awake,he realizes he is in serious pain and that he has been in a car accident. The car that he is a passenger in has driven off the side of a mountain road and went down a steep ravine.

As the man (Adrien Brody) starts taking stock of what has happened,he sees he isn’t alone,there is a dead man in the back seat. When he doesn’t seem to recall seeing the man before,we realize the man has suffered a severe concussion and as it turns out,a badly broken leg as well.
The man is trapped in the car,his broken leg is caught under the glove box and he can’t really move it without great pain. He tries to break loose but just doesn’t have the strength. That night it rains and the man shows his resourcefulness by using the astray to catch water from a storm and is able to stay hydrated.

His luck seems to be turning as a woman hiker spots him and rushes down to help,offering the man water and trail mix….but it turns out to be a hallucination from his concussion. The man is discouraged when it rains again that night,he reaches into the back and takes off the dead man’s jacket in order to stay warm.
The next day while trying to recover a mint from the driver’s side,he finds a loaded gun and examines it. The radio is reporting that three men robbed a bank and killed a security guard and the man suspects he may one of the men.

He looks out the window and sees a mountain lion dragging away yet another body that had been ejected from the crash,the man fires two shots at it….knowing he has to get out now,the man,using the gear shifter,manages to get out but passes out from the pain of his leg.
Once he comes too,he makes a splint for his leg and starts crawling away to find help.
Once again he sees the same woman hiker (Caroline Dhavernas) who continues to pop up in his mind’s eye.

As the man gets about 100 feet from the car, a hunter does find the car and starts taking bags from the trunk,the two have a stand off as the man asks for help but the hunter ignores him and leaves. When the man crawls back to the car,he sees the money in the trunk and has no idea how it got there.
He uses it to start a fire to stay warm before heading out the same way the hunter did.
As he is crawling,two things happen,he comes across a dog who stays with him and he starts getting his memory back in bits and pieces.
The man spots a bag by the mouth of a cave and when he opens it up,its a first aid kit,he swallows aspirin and then spots a little beef jerky which he splits with the dog.
He goes inside the cave and hunkers down for the night while it storms again…when he awakes the next day,he takes in the cave and notices its full of old bones. He has stumbled across the mountain lion’s home and to make it worse,the lion has killed the hunter (we cheered at that part).

The man then searches the hunter’s clothes and finds a cell phone but being so deep in the woods,there is no signal. The man crawls out as fast as he is able and continues onward.
The man and the dog arrive at a river where the two bond even more,once again,he spots the woman hiker. As the man attempts to cross the river,he is swept away and lands some distance away.
After 2-3 more days he has found that he has come back to the original crash site and that strange woman is there as well…….waiting for him……

I love these types of films,one where is it basically just one person carrying the whole film….Tom Hanks in “Cast Away”,Reese Witherspoon in “Wild” and Tom Hardy in “Locke”. Add “Wrecked” and Brody to this list,that Oscar he won is no fluke,the man can flat out act. This is an amazing film and to find out that it was director Michael Greenspan’s feature debut once again showcases IFC Films wonderful eye for spotting great talent.
I have to admit,I was perplexed on why “Wrecked” was released under the IFC Midnight banner as its not a horror or a supernatural story. It’s a beautiful character study of a man caught in a room and having no idea on how he got there.
Adrien Brody is one of my favorite actors,he is completely fearless when selecting his roles,he is more apt to be found doing a small indie film like this then working on one or two big studio movies.
The production looks amazing as well,this was shot on location in Canada and its a beautifully shot film. Both the dog and the mountain lion are the real deal,no CGI here.
“Wrecked” is rated “R” and has a run time of 90 minutes.  The special features are decent with a “making of…..” and trailer included.
The cheetah and I are both stoked that we loved “Wrecked” and we think you will as well. You can buy a copy by going to the website of IFC Films.

What recent indie film have you watched as of late? Drop your answer in the comments below,we love hearing from you!

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