In Getaway, Ethan Hawke portrays a former race car driver Brent Magna, whose wife has been kidnapped by Bulgarian bad guys.
Magna receives a phone call explaining, in exchange for his services, Mrs. Magna will be allowed to live. All Magna has to do is steal an armoured Shelby, which has also been wired with cameras and microphones, then follow the instructions of Jon Voight, the voice on the other end of the phone.
Just when poor Mr. Magna thinks things couldn’t get any worse for him, a young woman known only as the Kid, (Selena Gomez) attempts to car-jack him.
We say, “It’s maybe the worst movie, ever.”
HOWE: Well after taking the month of August off I was hoping I had missed all the summer tripe (The Smurfs 2, City of Bones, etc.) only to find that I have just witnessed the worst movie I have seen since reviewing movies. I can deal with bad acting and lack of decent action scenes as long as the plot is good. Getaway is none of these.
TAYLOR: I’d have to agree, sort of. One can always expect a certain amount of silliness from Hollywood action flicks. For instance, one does not go to any Fast and Furious movie because of its riveting plot. However, Getaway, which really should be called “Car Chase City”, does not deliver the goods. The goods, of course, are exciting, well planned and captured chase scenes.
Getaway uses way too many camera angles that are cut together too frantically to really enjoy the smash-up derby. The fact that the audience could care less about the characters and have trouble believing the flimsy plot should be of little consequence in a film like this.
HOWE: There are so many flaws in the car chase scenes that I could ramble on for hours, but here are my main reasons: It’s set in Europe, the world capital of sports cars, not just sports cars but super sports cars and yet they chose a Mustang Shelby. The car is souped up, yet for some reason couldn’t even catch a run-of-the-mill SUV, so even the driving is unbelievable. The movie is set on the tiny streets of Sofia, Bulgaria, where there is no way a rear wheel-drive car could be driven like this. And to top it all off, Magna drives at 120 mph throughout the night without filling up, once. Why can’t my car get gas mileage like that?
TAYLOR: What we have here is a film that fails on every possible level. The ridiculously named Magna is mopey and miserable. Gomez’ character is annoying. Voight, literally phoning it in, is a comic book caricature of every eastern European baddy you’ve ever seen. The script contains no real logic nor consequences. It’s filmed poorly, edited poorly (at some points in the same car chase, it’s both day and night), and basically thrown into theatres, I think because somebody wants Gomez to be an actress. Straight to the five-dollar bin with this one.
– Howe gives Getaway half a Cobra out of 5.
– Taylor gives it half a litre out of 5.
The film is currently showing at the Galaxy Cinemas in Vernon.
