Executscan Expected more

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

jery-tillotson-1 I hope our movie makers paid actress Nadja Brand some decent money because they sure to hell got their money's worth from her thespian and physical attributes. The camera catches huge close-ups of her bulging eyes, her moist nostrils, her flabby stomach, her matted hair. Most of all, they arrange for her to scream, shriek, slobber, groan, whimper, gasp and scream again through most of this grim, depressed tale of male monster who enjoys capturing women and hiding them out in the woods. To make things even worse, they bring in a SECOND female victim. And then she begins to out-scream the first woman! On and on she shrieks until finally even the psycho can't take it, so what does a good maniac do when the screaming won't stop: he cuts her tongue out. Hysterically, her only reaction is to glare at him--as if p... off that she can't shriek anymore. The Making of the movie shows how hideous the wintry conditions were while filming this dark saga on a tiny little budget. We viewers can only imagine the horrors it took to make this B-movie travesty--what with the nightmarish weather and the non-stop screaming of our female actresses.

Michael_Elliott Broken (2006)* (out of 4) Yet another mean-spirited SAW wannabe with this one coming from Britain. In the film a woman (Nadja Brand) goes out on a date and goes to bed but when she wakes up she's inside a coffin. She doesn't know where she is or how she got there but soon she's tied up to a tree where she must rip a razor out of her stomach in order to cut herself down. She's then introduced to the man (Eric Colvin) doing all of this stuff and from here on out it's one torture after another. The SAW movies have had some major ups and downs but I think you can view those films as at least well-written and made but that can't be said about BROKEN as it's one confusing mess that never really adds up to much and in the end it's pretty pointless. The pointless aspect would mean I would have to give a spoiler to the ending, which I won't do here but I'm sure most will came to the same train of thought after sitting through this thing. It's never made clear why the man kidnaps these women unless the only point was for them to grow a garden for him and keep his pots and pans clean. If that was the reason for everything going on then the screenplay is worse than I thought. If the entire point of this movie is to just see the woman tortured then that's simply not good enough. We've seen this type of film so many times that there's nothing fresh or original done here with the exception of the killer constantly being by the victim. There are a couple interesting scenes where he's taking care of her as if he cares but sadly this doesn't last too long and this emotion never comes back. The torture scenes are all rather cheaply done but we do get some special effects and this is especially true during the scene where the women have to remove stitches, dig into themselves and pull the razor out. Most of the other violence is rather bland and really doesn't get too hard to watch. The performances really aren't all that bad with both Brand and Colvin fitting their roles nicely but once again the screenplay really doesn't give them too much to work with. A third character is introduced and is so annoying that you'll be cheering for the killer. BROKEN is yet another entry in the so-called "torture/porn" genre that keeps delivering hit and miss flicks. This one here is certainly a miss and it's the type of film that will keep making you more and more frustrated as it moves along. You sit there watching just to finally get to the point but that point simply never comes.

Paul Andrews Broken starts as single mother Hope (producer Nadja Brand) returns home after a date to her young six year old daughter Jennifer (Megan Van Kerro), after making sure Jennifer is alright Hope goes to sleep herself. Suddenly Hope wakes up to find herself in a wooden coffin, a day later a man (Eric Colvin) lets her out but then ties a rope around her neck to a tree & balances her on a log, inside a deep wound in her stomach is a razor blade to cut through the rope & save herself from choking, Hope manages to reach inside her own body to find the blade & cut the rope. After this first test the man then chains her to a tree & makes her clean his pots & pans & tend a little vegetable patch in the middle of a forest, as you would. Hope tries to escape but the man punishes every attempt. Is Jennifer still alive & will Hope be able to find help?This British production was written & directed by Simon Boyes & Adam Mason who also edited it & it's a bit of an odd film, it's supposed to be a stark horror thriller but it just feels like something is missing. Available in the US in both 'R' rated & 'Unrated' cuts I will be basing my comments on the longer version although a few extra gore shots doesn't significantly alter the film overall. Broken is a strange film & hard to categorise, it starts off feeling like a Saw (2004) imitator with a gruesome trap of some sort but then it settles down into a bizarre imprisonment film as this seemingly random man keeps Hope chained to a tree in a forest so she can wash his dirty pans & grow vegetable's for him. Nothing is ever revealed about the man, his name, his origins or why he is doing what he is or how he even managed to kidnap Hope in the first place or why he choose her & the list just goes on. The two barely speak a word to each other & even then it's just short sentences, there's no idle chit-chat here as Hope develops a strong bond with a flower & the opportunity for a conversation with a flower is limited to say the least. You know, to be honest I was sitting there watching Broken & I was just thinking to myself when Hope slashed the back of that guy's leg but he still had her back didn't he realise things were not going to work out? I mean if he wanted a woman to cook & clean for you (who doesn't?) maybe he should try the lonely hearts ads in the local paper, & this time it might not be a bad idea to not actually kidnap & mutilate said woman, you know because that sort of thing generally doesn't help fledgling relationships does it? There's also a strange twist ending which makes little or no sense, why did that guy keep Jennifer in a run down shed? Surely that's an extra mouth to feed? Also when Hope was trying to break the door down why didn't Jennifer say anything? You know something like 'don't open the door mum or you will get a face full of nails' would have been helpful, wouldn't it?Personally I felt the film was lacking something after an OK start & a fairly intriguing premise it goes nowhere & never gives any sort of reason for anything that happens or even where the action takes place. There's a bit of gore but not that much, there's a couple of scenes of people reaching inside stomach wounds, someone pulls some stitches out, there's a broken leg, someones head gets bashed in & a tongue is pulled out which begs the question how do none of these extreme wounds not become infected without proper medical treatment & they quite frankly live like tramps? Considering that Hope has been living wild in the middle of a dirty forest exposed to the elements her white shirt is remarkably clean at the end after forty odd days isn't it? Just off topic for a moment I have no idea why this film is called Broken but a quick IMDb search brings up at least another 38 films with exactly the same title.With a supposed budget of about £500,000 this is well made & has decent production values but I didn't find it scary as much as a little unsettling. Filmed in some wood here in the UK in Cambridge somewhere although it could have been shot anywhere since one tree looks much like another. The acting didn't do much for me & that woman who screamed constantly got on my nerves, sure in that situation in real life you might scream that much but it's no less irritating to have to listen to.Broken is a film that may grip & disturb some but the lack of story or logic behind anything that happens meant I couldn't get into it at all, that's just my opinion so treat it as such but Broken didn't do much for me & ultimately felt a bit pointless.

chicagopoetry Broken is simply an awful movie. It is an abusive husband's wet dream and an abused wife's worst nightmare. A crazy guy in the woods who looks about as harmless as Barney Fyfe kidnaps women and forces them to wash his pots and pans for him. He keeps his stash of women chained to trees and if they cry too much he cuts their tongues on with his big knife. He keeps one particular women chained to that tree for about two months until she finally gets loose and beats his brains out with an iron rod. That's it, folks. Sorry for the spoiler, but that is the entire plot. Of course, the survivor of this hate fest could have gotten away much, much earlier, when she got hold of his big knife but instead of slitting his worthless throat she only cuts his leg, tries to run away, only to stop somewhere and wait for him to come and catch her again. And of course, the other woman who is chained to the other tree could have gotten away too, when she filled a sock with rocks and hit him in the head and knocked him unconscious for a moment but instead of continuing to hit him until he was dead she runs away so that he can of course get up and shoot her in the back with his rifle, yes, the rifle that she could have taken from him in the first place. Yes, of course, because women are stupid, right, according to this movie, and this movie really, really hates women. It doesn't even give the poor survivor the satisfaction of finding her daughter alive at the end. This is nothing but an hour and a half of pure, mindless torture. It is pointless beyond belief.