REBROKEN: They Almost Did It

Any time Tobin Bell is in a movie, whether it’s a big or a small role, I’m going to watch it. There’s no way that I can pass up the chance. I of course had barely even heard of him until the Saw franchise but after that I started noticing him all over the place in other things. He’s ridiculously consistent and highly underrated for his subtle performances. The man is a great actor. When I saw the trailer for Rebroken the first thing I noticed was him, I was going to have to see this movie.

Scott Hamm is Will, a man who we find at the beginning of the film in grief counseling due to the death of his daughter. She drown in the bath while in his care and it haunts him. Every day for Will is the same, he’s in a groundhog day of his own making. He goes to group, buys liquor, goes home and eats dinner, then gets wasted and falls asleep to nightmares of the evening his daughter died. It’s all very sad. 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.

Will seems destined to relive the same cycle every single day until Lydia (Nija Okoro) from his group suggests a possible solution. Will needs to go to a tent city and find a man named Von (Tobin Bell). Von has a special way of helping people move on in their grief journey. A set of records that have to be listened to, one at a time, with a clear heart and mind. Soon Will begins having what seem like ghostly encounters with his daughter as he listens to the records in succession. All this leads to a third act where they decided to destroy their movie.

What ReBroken Got Right

This film shows grief after loss in a very real way. Anyone who has ever lost someone can easily tap into what Will is feeling, it is all handled in a very true-to-life way. Rebroken was directed by Kenny Yates and he uses quite a few stationary shots with very little camera movement. It’s a perfect way to show us what’s going on as it adds to the overall feeling of being stuck. Will is stuck in his head, and we (the viewer) stuck with him. The directing of this film was very well done, often just focusing on a spinning record, it cried out to be one of “those movies.” It didn’t quite make it but it tried.

Of course, I can’t wrap up this section without once again singing the praises of Tobin Bell. The man doesn’t miss. Even in this movie where his total on-screen time couldn’t have been more than five minutes when he was there, he’s who you were watching. That man just demands attention with his presence. At one point he even asked Will, “what are you willing to do,” and the fact that he didn’t finish with, “to survive,” devastated me.

What ReBroken Got Wrong

Plain and simple, the third act is the answer. The film spent so much time getting me to buy into the paranormal, supernatural ghost story that when they dropped that big twist at the end (if you can call that tired old trope a twist) they completely lost me. I was ready for what they were telling me the movie was, I was all-in on that train and then they pulled a Sucker Punch. At least in that movie, we understood they were doing that to us, here we learn very suddenly that nothing in the movie has happened. Not one thing other than him hitting his head on the tub trying to save his daughter who he thought was drowning but she was only practicing holding her breath. Big sigh, everything after that was taking place in his head because he suffered brain damage. Bigger sigh.

Another thing that could have been improved upon was the lead in the film. I know it’s Will’s story but every other character was far more interesting. The choices and performance make sense when you find out the man is comatose in a hospital but even that doesn’t excuse some of the flat and flavorless acting that we were served. I’ve seen my kids be more convincing telling me that they don’t have homework. My dog has convinced me with a look that he wasn’t the one who ate the couch cushions, it’s not that hard is what I’m saying.

Conclusion:

This movie had really good first and second acts. The mystery was building to a point and I was fully invested in the story they were telling me. The fact that they pulled that out from under me isn’t the part that I didn’t like, I love being surprised, but it was what that surprise was that really got to me. It was almost as if they had written to a point and didn’t know how to drive it home so they punted rather than having faith in what they had already done. Somewhere along the way, they lost their confidence. They had a good thing going.

I was really looking forward to this film from the trailer, I felt like it would be something different. I wasn’t wrong with that assumption but in this case, the “different” that it turned out to be was more of the same. I feel like watching it with the knowledge that the ending attempts what it attempts might actually be a blessing. If you know that it’s coming it might make that journey a little more enjoyable. Knowing they took a good thing and fed it to the hogs at the last minute. In any case, it was worth it to me just to see Bell in something but I highly doubt I’ll be watching it again.

Rebroken was released on March 7, 2023!

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