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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS Year: 1975 Rating: ****1/2 |
British actress Jill Ireland sporadically appearing in husband Charles Bronson's films was really a matter of convenience, providing the family a kind of busman's holiday that was great for them, but not always the audience since her overacting often clashed with the comparably slow-burn cadence of vehicles like THE MECHANIC or HARD TIMES: the latter making an enemy out of writer/director Walter Hill, shooting as few scenes with Ireland as possible, so he never worked with a perturbed Bronson again...
But in the case of (the same years') BREAKOUT director Tom Gries's Mystery/Western BREAKHEART PASS, Jill Ireland fit perfectly since her character... the daughter of a post-Civil War Northern General... is fitfully classy and sophisticated, making one particular opposites-attract scene really spark while helping Bronson's supposedly captured-outlaw Deakin, tied uncomfortably inside an otherwise fancy train car and... although he's the central lead, PASS is mainly an ensemble, equally balancing the other characters, all suspects...
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| Poster Artwork for BREAKHEART PASS |
That is, suspected solely by Bronson, actually an undercover government agent posing as a wanted man, gathering clues about the titular BREAKHEART PASS that the train's headed towards (involving a reported army base diphtheria epidemic), roaring through a snow-covered, deep wilderness region that provides a beautifully harsh aesthetic, viewed from both the interior and exterior: where Bronson battles a knife-wielding cook...
Yet his identity's still unknown by higher-class passengers Richard Crenna as a cold, facts-only Governor, also Ireland's love-interest; Ed Lauter as a distrusting-of-everyone army major; Ben Johnson a no-nonsense Marshall who thinks he's taking Bronson to hang; and Bill McKinney's bible-thumping reverend who is actually...
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| Poster Artwork for BREAKHEART PASS |
Well some things shouldn't be spoiled because the story, based on a novel by twist-and-turn author Alistair MacLean, flows tightly alongside the characters, eventually morphing from the suspenseful, dialogue-centered, Hitchcock-inspired train ride into your typical horse-clopping, guns-drawn Western-flick finale...
Overall providing the previous years' DEATH WISH superstar Charles Bronson an intelligent yet brutally resilient action-hero role, with just-enough vulnerability needed for a dangerous journey that he and the audience are — from the very beginning — trapped within the midst of.
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Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland in BREAKHEART PASS
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| Charles Bronson and Richard Crenna in BREAKHEART PASS |
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Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS with Casey Tibbs
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Richard Crenna, Bill McKinney and Ben Johnson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Jill Ireland in BREAKHEART PASS |
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Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS with Archie Moore
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| Sally Kirkland in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Sally Kirkland in BREAKHEART PASS with Ed Lauter and David Huddleston |
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Bill McKinney and Charles Durning in BREAKHEART PASS with Ben Johnson & John Mitchum
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Richard Crenna and Jill Ireland in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Bob Tessier in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Ben Johnson and Richard Crenna in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Scott Newman (son of Paul Newman) in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Ed Lauter in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Ben Johnson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Roy Jenson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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Wichita actor Rayford Barnes in BREAKHEART PASS
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| Rayford Barnes in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Ed Lauter, Charles Bronson and Richard Crenna in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Jill Ireland and Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Ed Lauter and Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Charles Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Credit Effects for BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Credit Effects for BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Credit Effects for BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Credit Effects for BREAKHEART PASS |
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| Credit Effects for BREAKHEART PASS |
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