Wrecked: Movie Review
A man wakes up in a wrecked car, bloody and bruised, and worst of all, trapped. There’s a guy in the backseat, presumably dead. There’s a body lying among the trees. The car is situated in the woods, desolate. No one is around to help.
We see the man was a passenger in this car and his leg is trapped under part of the dashboard. As the day turns into night, the man slowly dissolves into panic. How far into the woods is this car? How did it get there? And the biggest question not only for the viewer but also for the man is, “Who are these people?”
Days go by without relief. The man (Adrien Brody) is by himself; the people he was driving with perished in the crash. With no memory of what happened or what his own name is, the man becomes more and more anguished, because his leg won’t budge and he can’t extricate himself from the car. Pure despair begins to get the best of this man, and he continually dreams of a woman who comes to rescue him. Who is she?
On the surface level, Wrecked is a simple movie written by Christopher Dodd and directed by Michael Greenspan. Three men are in a car that happens to crash in the middle of the woods. Two die. One survives but is trapped inside the car and has no way to get outside help. The entire story centers around this man (Brody), and his range of emotions as confusion settles into despair, which then moves into resolve as he fights to get out of this car, all the while trying to piece together how he ended up in the middle of nowhere with no memory.
But the movie is much more than simple. In a movie like this, it’s lazy to deem it simple—simple storyline, simple set, and simple acting because of the lack of dialogue. But all this simplicity is just surface level. Its pure simplicity makes it cunningly complex. Every chord of music that chimes in through this movie enhances this man’s dire situation, but let’s not forget who the genius is behind the character. Academy Award winner Adrien Brody is no stranger to carrying movies and he doesn’t disappoint in Wrecked. Brody’s face is truly worth 1,000 words. You can take away the wreckage and the woods and the whole story would be told poetically just by watching Brody. He has a way of conveying emotions and full narratives without speaking a word.
Wrecked is a bit slow moving at times, but my interest always was held by the wonder of what will happen next and the curiosity of the backstory of this car wreck. The movie is worth watching to find out the “whys” behind the story, and all answers are had by the end of the film. Some parts will remind you of Cast Away, but it really is so much more. Watch Wrecked to see Brody’s genius at work.
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Sharon Foss has been writing professionally since 2000. She began her career in newspapers, but has since moved on to writing for websites, including eHow.com, Terrortube.com, About.com, and Horrorsociety.com, and editing college courses full-time. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in mass communication, specializing in print journalism, from Illinois State University.