‘ReBroken’ Review: A Psychological Thriller That Lacks Depth

Creating a powerful thriller is not an easy task. For this genre to work, there must be an extensive and deep exploration of characters. It doesn’t matter if the characters are sympathetic; you need to understand them as much as possible to understand their decisions and how the world interacts with them. ReBroken is a new entry in the genre that tries to apply the lessons from other movies but seems to miss the bullseye when it comes to the execution of its story and characters.

ReBroken is a film directed by Kenny Yates and stars Scott Hamm Duenas, Kipp Tribble, Alison Haislip, Nija Okoro, and Tobin Bell. The film tells the story of Will, a man who has fallen on hard times after the death of a loved one. Will attends a support group for those with a bad time facing losing a loved one. However, the group doesn’t seem to be working. When Will finds a mysterious man who gives him a recording that he can use to talk to his loved one in the afterlife, Will’s life will change forever.

When drafting the story of a thriller, especially one that will try to deceive the viewer, many things need to be considered. David Fincher is a master of the genre. His movies mix both sentiments that you cannot trust anything you are seeing and don’t know what to expect because, on the surface, everything seems pretty much what is presented to you. How to walk that line is something everyone wonders about. ReBroken tries to do it but fails in several aspects.

First and most importantly, the movie doesn’t know how to present its characters. Sadly, most of the performances are quite weak, especially Scott Hamm Duenas, who is clearly making his best effort but lacks any hook. His expressions come off as fake, and no emotion comes from him at any point in the story. His character moves from place to place like a robot, and even when things get complicated for him, he remains as distant as a character can be.

Without a firm connection to our main character, it will be hard to care about what happens to him or what he decides to do. Kipp Tribble, who also has a hand in the script, fares better in the performances. He feels a bit more natural in his acting. Tribble’s character is the movie’s most interesting part because you can feel he is in confrontation with our main character. Still, at moments, he also feels like an ally. The character moves back and forth between these two sidelines, making you think.

Nija Okoro also does a fantastic job as Lydia, but her role is so small that you can blink and miss it. She definitely needed more space to work and more things to do. This is a problem; a big one for the movie. The main character is the least interesting element in the film. All the supporting characters have this mysterious feeling about them. The feeling makes you want to see more from them, but instead, the movie decides to spend a lot of time, most of it alone, with a main character that lacks depth and any sort of personality.

Regarding the visual aspects of the film, the movie looks pretty standard. There is some effort towards that beginning to make some cool imagery, but then that drops completely in favor of that TV film look that is pretty boring. Clearly, this is a low-budget production, so the schedule and everything else must have been pretty tight. Nevertheless, rolling the camera and aiming it at the actors is not enough today; you need to do so much more if you want to stand out among the crowd.

At some points, the story feels like it is leaning towards some supernatural elements, but this is another aspect where the movie falls short. More supernatural elements would have helped to put the reality of the situation into question. It would also have made the movie just so much more interesting. When, more than two decades ago, video games like Silent Hill were doing things of much more depth and complexity than anything in this movie, then you should know you really need to push a bit more to be compelling.

ReBroken takes the lessons from other similar movies into account when it comes to presenting its premise and then creating the climax that will put the entire movie into perspective. Still, thrillers are so much more than that. The movie lacks complexity in its characters, especially with the main character, who should be the person who interests us the most, as it is his story that we are watching. There are some nice ideas here, but they have been played too many times and executed much better in other films.

SCORE: 5/10