If Tobin Bell is in a movie, I will watch it regardless of how big or small the role is. No way I can ignore a chance like that. I barely even knew of him before the Saw franchise, but after it, I began spotting him everywhere. He is astonishingly dependable and underappreciated for his understated work. The man is a phenomenal actor. The first thing that grabbed my focus in the trailer for Rebroken was Bell and that meant I had to see the movie.
Scott Hamm is Will, a father who attends grief counseling sessions after losing his daughter to drowning. She drowned in the bathtub while he was supposed to be watching her, and this memory plagues him. His life is monotonous and repetitive like every day feels the same. He attends essentially no self-help group sessions, buys alcohol, eats a meal, drinks heavily, and then tries to escape the horrible memories of his daughter’s death by sleeping. Everything is quite tragic. People in the grief group do seem like they want to help him, Kipp Tribble (Bryan) meets Will in the parking lot every night offering to drive him home and Bella (Alison Haislip) offers many ways to try and cope with his loss as the leader of the group.
It looks to Will as he is set to perpetually repeat the same routine day after day until one day, Lydia (Nija Okolo) from his group offers an alternative. Will has to travel to a tent city and look for a certain Von (Tobin Bell). Von has an unusual method of helping people get past their grief. Some tapes must be played in order and require the listener to be at peace. As Will listens to the tapes in order, he begins having what appear to be ghostly visions of his daughter. All of this leads to a third act in which the characters resolve to destroy the film they have made.
Showing grief after loss is not an easy task and is often tackled with tenderness or empathy. Will certainly feels grief after loss, and it is all handled in a true life manner. Rebroken was directed by Kenny Yates who employs a slower pace by using several stationary shots which means there is very little movement within the camera’s frame. His method works perfectly in portraying Will’s internal struggles, which is further accentuated by the overall feeling of being trapped. Because Will is trapped inside of his head, we as viewers are left hopelessly forced to remain with him. The rest of the film was simply okay as far as direction goes, and for a lot of it, it lingered on the spinning record and was a bit of “those movies.” Which “those movies” exactly? It didn’t quite make it, but I got the sense it was trying.
To finish up here, it wouldn’t do to skip yet another chance to praise Tobin Bell, which I have done with him and have previously so often. The man doesn’t miss. It can’t have been more than five minutes in total screen time to his credit in this movie, but when he was on, he was the one you were looking at the whole time. The sheer force of that man’s presence commands attention. At one point, he asked Will, “What are you willing to do,” which made it shocking to discover that his answer was not, “to survive,” which left me devastated.
To put it plainly, the answer lies within the third act. The movie spent so much time trying to convince me of this paranormal ghost story that by the time they threw out that big twist if you can call it that, I had completely zoned out. I was prepared for what they were telling me the movie was, I was all-in on that party, and then they did a Sucker Punch. At least in that movie, we understood they were doing that to us, here we find out very suddenly that nothing, and I mean nothing in this film has taken place. Not a single thing other than the guy smashing his skull into the bathtub in an attempt to save his daughter whom he thought was drowning. She was just practicing her breath-holding. Sigh. Everything after that was in his mind because of the brain damage he suffered. Double sigh.
I believe other areas of the film also needed improvement, and the lead character is one of them. I understand that it is Will’s story. Still, to me, every other character was more captivating than him. An actor needing to ‘perform’ while comatose in a hospital bed does explain some of the unseasoned acting. But there are certain things that simply don’t have an excuse, and the acting we were given was lacking completeness and taste. If I had to base my thoughts on how compelling my children are when they pretend to not have homework, I’d say they are far more believable. My dog has made me believe he wasn’t responsible for chewing up the couch cushions by simply casting a glance. And what I am trying to say is, it isn’t that difficult.
The initial and second portions of this movie were really entertaining. The suspense was building and I was hooked on the story they were telling. The fact that they took that away from me is not the part I disliked, which was the surprise. I enjoy big plot twists, but that one was something else. It might as well have looked like they wrote themselves to a point and then decided to check out instead of believing in the work they had already done. At some part of the process, they seemed to have misplaced their confidence. They had a good thing going for them.
The trailer seemed interesting and I was looking forward to the film. It turned out to be what I initially thought, but this time different was more of the same. Watching it with the knowledge of the ending’s attempts could be a blessing. You may find the journey more enjoyable with that knowledge. It was worth it for me to see Bell in something, but it’s highly doubtful I’ll ever watch it again.
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