It’s to writer/director Sean Ellis’ great credit that The Broken (2008), his visually flashy but structurally understated follow-up to Cashback (2006), that it makes so much out of a film that doesn’t have a single memorable line of dialogue. The dialogue is purely functional and hence negligible, leaving the bulk of the plot’s build-up up to cinematographer Angus Hudson’s luridly glossy visuals. Tension builds and builds and even when its released, it’s with the greatest care as to how much we see and not how much we’re told. Even the film’s flabbiest images, even its off-putting Psycho reference, are drawn taut by the fact that nobody is being vigorously interrogated as to their meaning. They’re just over there in the viewer’s periphery and then gone until the next confrontation, which never comes soon enough. Do yourself a favor and find a copy of this film.
