Break was supposed to be little more than a kinky, straight-to-DVD noir, its existence unknown outside a small number of Netflix subscribers who'd had Basic Instinct 2 in their queues and were therefore destined to learn that it too was a truly terrible Movie They'd ♥. But then this happened, and Break instead became one of the last showcases for the singular and nonconforming talents of David Carradine, whose death in a Thai hotel room from asphyxiation is still obscured by a thick cloud of Lady Boy-perfume-scented mystery.
Nothing in the performance suggests Carradine has found his Joker -- so we can all forget about a worshipful, Danny DeVito-delivering tongue bath among Oscar night's Best Supporting Actor lionizations -- but there's still plenty here to pique the interest of anyone following the unusual case.
Within the span of one 40-second clip, Carradine manages to menacingly wrap some kind of breath-control tefillin around his arm as he offers up a Gina Gershon-alike and Ryan Seacrest's pool boys as fleshly gifts to his hit man visitor. Did we mention he also keeps his pet dwarf on a short leash? I'll admit I have no idea here where to draw the line between fantasy and reality, but I'm suddenly overcome by a wave of sympathy for whatever Thai chambermaid had to clean up that mess.