"Break" contains all the elements you'd expect from a hard-boiled Quentin Tarantino knockoff: the complicated hit men, the fetishes, the blood baths, not to mention the presence of Michael Madsen and David Carradine.
There are enough small touches to sporadically hold your interest through the scant running time of this flashback-laden thriller, which manages to include a folkie chanteuse, a little person on a leash and a bodyguard named Haiku (Matthew Jones) who -- you guessed it -- speaks only in 5-7-5-syllable verse form.
The bare-bones plot revolves around a dying crime boss (Chad Everett) who hires favorite assassin Frank (Frank Krueger) to murder him and the Woman (Sarah Thompson) he loves. Frank is the only character sporting an actual name (in addition to the Woman, there's the Associate, the Bishop and the China Man, among many others) and he also owns a secret that will complicate his latest assignment.
Just as it isn't difficult to guess the particulars of Frank's past, it's not too hard to figure out exactly where "Break" is heading. Nor is it all that interesting, thanks to Krueger's bland blankness in the lead role. Writer-director Marc Clebanoff does sneak in the occasional change-up, shifting the movie from noir to kung-fu slapstick, demonstrating, I suppose, that he has seen the "Kill Bill" movies as well as "Reservoir Dogs."
To which Haiku might say:
Mr. Blond now Gray
Tarantino a shadow
He has my number
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Glenn Whipp --
"Break." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes. At Laemmle's Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869.
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An armchair tour of one man's mind
In filmmaker Daniel Burman's psychoanalytical comedy-drama "Empty Nest," a celebrated middle-aged Argentine playwright (Oscar Martinez) takes to his beloved armchair after an exasperating dinner party and a fight with his wife, Martha (Cecilia Roth), only to embark on a quasi-surreal version of his life that makes his greatest fears and desires more palpable than anything else.
Mixed in with Leonardo's escalating preoccupations -- his wife and grown children drifting from him, writer's ennui, a sexy orthodontist -- are moments of surreality: flying toy planes with his daughter, an ever-present neurologist commenting on his situation, even a musical sequence with a marching band. Burman may not be Fellini but he has an enjoyably frisky eye for comic detail and never takes his protagonist's dilemma so seriously that we lose the playfulness of his mind-over-memory construct.
