'GETAWAY': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
B car-chase movie starring Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez. Hawke plays an ex-race-car driver who's forced to bend to the will of a madman in order to rescue his kidnapped wife. He finds help from a young girl (Gomez) who knows a lot about computers and is the owner of the stolen car he's driving. The movie co-stars Jon Voight as the voice of the 'madman' and was directed by Courtney Solomon (who also directed the B movies 'DUNGEONS & DRAGONS' and 'AN American HAUNTING'). The film was written by first time feature film writers Sean Finegan and Gregg Maxwell Parker. It's already well known as a painfully bad movie but in my opinion it's not that bad.
Hawke stars as Brent Magna, a former race-car driver who's wife (Rebecca Budig) is kidnapped by an unknown man (Voight). The man tells Magna he must steal a car, a Shelby Mustang Super Snake, from a parking garage and do whatever he says (in it) or his wife will be killed. Magna is forced to drive around like a madman, endangering innocent bystanders, while constantly evading capture by cops. When the owner of the mustang (Gomez) shows up attempting to take her car back Magna is forced to take her along with him. Her computer skills become useful as the two try to outwit this crazy man, holding them all captive, and end his crazy games.
The movie is a pretty routine car-chase action flick but it delivers what it promises. It has a decent amount of thrilling and spectacular action scenes and is pretty fast paced. The story is pretty dumb and the character development is ridiculous but people don't usually go to see movies like this for things like that. If not for the casting of Hawke, Gomez and Voight this movie probably would have been a direct to video release where it could have been a little more respected for what it is instead of failing to meet unusually high expectations. The movie is a bad B movie but it's still kind of fun (at least in places). I like Hawke as a leading man and Voight makes a good sinister villain (even if you only ever see his mouth and hear his voice). Gomez is cute but she still doesn't seem to have any acting skills and her character is pretty annoying in this. The movie is what it is and if you know what you're getting into it shouldn't be that much of a letdown.
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