The Broken (2008)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Best movie ever!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I wonder if Sean Ellis knew exactly what he wanted, the movie is very confusing and ends like that, unexplained what I just saw, who are the duplicates of the characters, are there really duplicates or everything is in the imagination of some of the characters, everything is unclear and chaotic.

If you like slow burn horror movies you may like this more than I did. When I saw it was a English movie I kind thought it would go like this. Hate to be the standard American but not much happens and the dialogue is kind of odd.

. . . of a nation's populace being replaced by Demonic Doubles--capable of committing Ultimate Evil--one at a time. Everyone knows that this sort of thing happens occasionally in Real Life, such as in Hitler's Germany or Trump's USA. Years of bullying at West Point and other South-Centric Military Institutions gave Poe a strong sense of the impending Confederacy of Doomed Dimwits about to encompass his home state Virginia and its surrounding Red States. As Director Ellis documents during THE BROKEN, modern medicine can now detect such instances of Mass Delusion and Demonic Possession through X-Rays and Brain Scans. Ellis offers no hope for the weak-minded masses subject to "Capgras Syndrome," victims of which can mistake Red Commie KGB-promoted serial finger rapist TV Game Show Hosts for American Commanders-in-Chief. Whether it's Jeff Davis, Adolph Hitler, or Don Jun Rump spear-heading a Demonic Infestation, the implicit message of Poe and Ellis is to purify the populace with Bonfires of such Inanities. Though these miscreants may LOOK like Aunt Ethel, Uncle Fred, other family, friends, or colleagues, their current status as Rump enablers demand immediate termination with extreme prejudice.

A film with an interesting premise that never quite materializes, "Broken" presents a good cast of actors who are not allowed to realize their full talents. The opening quotation from Edgar Allen Poe remains an unfulfilled mystery. The shattered mirrors in various locations don't make sense. The heavy music designed to heighten our worry is overdone. Better to have left it away. There are elements of Hitchcock but they never come together to form a coherent story. Instead, we are led down various paths as the young woman protagonist tries to sort things out after being injured in an auto crash. And we are none the wiser for her attempts. The worst thing about the film as that it is boring and drags in places. The relationships between the different characters in the film are tenuous and often inexplicable. We are left to make assumptions about who they are and how they relate to one another. A waste of fine talent. In the end we are left holding the bag (of popcorn?) without a denouement that would help us understand what the author/director was driving at. In summary,"Broken" leaves us wondering what exactly the young woman experienced and whether she was able to overcome her apparent mental difficulties.At one point she undergoes a series of brain scans and when her doctors say these are inconclusive and she would need to submit to more tests, she refuses and leaves the hospital. So what? It's easy to assume that she's intimidated by a bunch of men in white smocks looking at scans of her brain, but there's got to be more to it. We cannot see the conclusions she draws from her experience. Instead, we are led on a wild goose chase. This is another film about women as victims. Very disappointing.