A white-collar weenie from Boston and his whiny wife drive their Jeep Cherokee to a new life in California. To get there, they must pass through the unforgiving desert inhabited by savagely debased humanity. That's the familiar premise of Breakdown, and no sooner than you can say Straw Dogs, the unpleasant couple are beset by the predatory local yokels, who kidnap the wife and hold her for ransom. Stripped of the accouterments of civilization, the weenie must fall back on his own instincts and manhood and fight back.

Before reaching that point, however, Breakdown slogs through more than an hour of meandering exposition that is the cinematic equivalent of driving mile after mile in the desert. It helps that the landscape is Monument Valley, but the reminder of John Ford don't reflect well on this film's modest virtues. Kurt Russell as the weenie is engaging casting, mostly because you wonder when he's going to shake off the phony wimp act and become Kurt Russell. Ironically, at the screening I attended, just as payback time began and the film was building some suspense, it did break down -- the last reel was upside down and in reverse. It might not have been the rousing climax that director Jonathan Mostow intended, but it was in a larger sense a lot more satisfying. At the Cheri, the Fresh Pond, and the Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.