DESPITE SUSPENSE, `BREAKDOWN' BREAKS DOWN.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Critic

It's hard to imagine a worse example of product placement than the brand-new Jeep Grand Cherokee that stalls to a stop at the outset of the thriller ``Breakdown,'' leaving a happily married couple stranded in a vast, menacing desert.

But, as it turns out, it's not the fault of the automaker at all, but of a psycho desert rat (M.C. Gainey) who's crawled under and yanked some wires loose.

The grizzled Gainey and his fellow thugs, who include J.T. Walsh (``Sling Blade'') and young Jack Noseworthy (MTV's ``Dead at 21'') are old hands at a deadly game in which they prey on hapless travelers who stray too far from civilization.

But the couple are caught completely unaware, and when Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) climbs into the cab of an apparently friendly trucker (Walsh) to go phone for help at a diner, her husband, Jeff (Kurt Russell), figures she'll be back with a tow truck.

She never reappears, and after figuring out how to fix the Cherokee himself, Jeff charges off to look for her, but encounters only blank stares and a strange, unsettling indifference from the diner patrons he questions.

The local cops seem straightforward and friendly, but ineffective. With growing paranoia pumping up his blood-pressure, Jeff spies the trucker who gave his wife a lift and chases him down, only to have the man deny he's ever seen her. Jeff goes ballistic, but to no avail.

The set-up, orchestrated by director and co-writer Jonathan Mostow, creates a creeping sense of dread and panic as the remoteness of the desert setting and the depth of Jeff's aloneness sink in.

But with its bare-bones plot and bland characterizations - Jeff and Amy are meant to represent Everycouple, since the movie takes pains to convey that this could happen to you - it doesn't engage on any but the most basic levels, and viewers are likely to feel more exhausted than exhilarated when it's over.

On the plus side, Mostow definitely keeps the suspense churning, and there are a number of top-drawer action and stunt sequences. In one, Russell catches a ride on the undercarriage of Walsh's 18-wheeler, and maneuvers his way into the cab while the truck is barreling down a highway; in another, Walsh drives the huge truck right through a house trailer where Jeff and his wife are hiding, shearing it in half.

Solidly staged and executed, partly outside Moab, Utah, and also in California and Nevada, ``Breakdown'' has its moments, when it performs much like similar streamlined thrillers ``Duel'' and ``The Vanishing'' in keeping the viewer on the edge of suspense.

But the violent confrontations between Russell and his tormentors become so brutal and desperate that the ride becomes more punishing than enjoyable, a kind of mean, awful contest for survival, much like the unfortunate recent airplane thriller ``Turbulence.''

Russell and Quinlan (``Apollo 13'') do the best they can, creating a convincing, energetic sense of a good relationship in the brief moments before everything goes wrong, and Russell holds things together as a relentless, hard-driving but vulnerable action hero.

At the end, though, when good finally triumphs over evil, there's not much sense of redemption - just a hard, bitter relief.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Breakdown'' (R; violence).

The stars: Kurt Russell, Kathleen Quinlan, J.T. Walsh.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jonathan Mostow. Screenplay by Jonathan Mostow and Sam Montgomery. Produced by Martha De Laurentiis and Dino De Laurentiis. Released by Paramount.

Running time: One hour, 35 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Charging off to look for his missing wife, a frustrated Jeff (Kurt Russell) goes ballistic in ``Breakdown.''