Wrecked - DVD

Film: A man (Adrien Brody) wakes up trapped in a demolished car in the middle of a deserted wooded area. Trapped and with no memory of how he got into this tinny prison, he tries everything to free himself from the wreckage. When he discovers that there is a dead man in the back seat, his panic increases. Still, he manages to free himself. Small snippets of memory, a gun he finds in the car and news of a bank robbery he hears on the radio, raise an uneasy suspicion in the injured man. But even if he were a wanted criminal on the run, that would probably be the least of his problems at the moment.

Wrecked follows an inherently interesting premise. Like Ryan Reynolds most recently in Buried, Adrien Brody awakens in a coffin-like prison from which he cannot (initially) free himself without knowing how he got into this dicey situation. In itself a starting situation for thrilling thriller entertainment - as Buried just proved very impressively. Wrecked also starts promising and extremely exciting, enriched with some moments of bizarre humor.

But at the latest with the appearance of a mysterious woman (Caroline Dhavernas), the film takes a direction that does it only limited good. For the man without memory is repeatedly haunted by visions and supposed memory scraps. Soon neither he nor the viewer knows what is reality and what is injury-induced trauma. Although director Michael Greenspan manages to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to a coherent picture by the end, which despite all predictability can even hold a little surprise at the end. However, at times the visions seem a little too forced to support the build-up of tension in the story.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite is the case. Instead of a claustrophobic thriller that can unleash an oppressive atmosphere even in the vast woods, the viewer is repeatedly jarred out of the suspense moment by long-winded and somewhat odd moments. The scenes in which Adrien Brody tortures himself through the uneasy nature also seem rather boring than exciting. Yet Brody does his best to carry this film almost on his own. But the production seems too overwhelmed with this task to be able to support Brody adequately in his efforts.

Wrecked is a thriller with good moments, an intrinsically exciting story and high ambitions, which seem to have been a little too high for the director. Time and again Greenspan gallops in his staging, so that tension and dedication of the main actor suffer. Lovers of thriller fare of a different kind can definitely risk a look, because especially the first third and the resolution offer decent entertainment. But for those who need more pace, action and logic for a thrilling DVD evening, the film itself might seem like a complete train wreck.

Picture + Sound:The technical realization is good, but does show slight weaknesses in some areas. The picture provides a coherent atmosphere with its reduced, in dirty earth tones held color. Especially in close-ups, the sharpness can also convince, in other moments, however, slight blurring and minimal image noise can be detected. The sound is largely discreet, there is hardly any dialogue. In return, the forest sounds and other small sound effects are well used. Good!

Extras: Apart from the fact that there are no optional subtitles to go with the extras, the bonus material is well worth watching. The 6 minute making of deals primarily with how difficult it was to get the equipment and most especially the wrecked car to the remote location. The 16 minute look behind the scenes is then more of a standard commercial making of, although there are some very interesting insights into the small production here as well. The whole thing is complemented by a nearly 2min interview with actress Caroline Dhavernas and an amusing look at a day in the life of corpse dummy George (approx. 2min). Plus the trailer for the film, plus other programming tips from the provider. Good!

Conclusion: Wrecked is an occasionally tense thriller that threatens to be crushed by its lofty ambitions. The occasionally somewhat laboured production is just about saved by the good Adrien Brody and some very atmospheric moments. For lovers of more unusual thriller fare despite some lengths and logic holes quite still worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp