Getaway

I will be the "other side" of the reviews, as i will be honest , I saw it for free... I would probably be mildly disappointed if i had payed $15... it's a "red box" movie ...worth a couple of bucks . but it wasn't that bad --like "Frankenstein theory" or other REALLY bad films lately-- If you saw "vanishing Point", this is better ,by far than that one .

In a nutshell , Getaway is , or could be called "A Lot of Cops Crashing"

Yes it is a thin plot , yes it has bad writing ,and although overall, it is highly polished, some of the camera work seems to be shot by a 9th grade A/V student,and some is crazy good, there is one shot towards the end that -for me- was incredible camera work .... it is a grill cam shot from the second car car , it is one continuous shot that winds you through traffic like you are riding a street luge, it is a clean crisp long -no scene splits- camera shot that I just loved ,

Although predictable , this film is full of action, well , car chases, Im a car nut so , who cares about Oscars when you get to thrash a highly built mustang ... it's no "shawshank" but it gets at least a five ---6.5 , from me , great action , no slow plot development , and the ending is great if not just a little predictable ....its just popcorn fun ...yes, it was fun ..dont listen to the other critics if you like any of this . I hate slow crappy movies , this is not one of those .... when i am bored , I will watch this again

A late night car chase through the cosmopolitan streets of Sofia, Bulgaria; throbbing with that distinct and exotic coolness European cities exude when darkness falls... it's an idea that could have been executed very well. Unfortunately not in the case of Getaway, which instead slaughters the idea so poorly you can't help but feel sorry for it. 

Everyone loves a good car chase. You won't find one in Getaway though. All the chase scenes are nothing more than a nauseating rapid succession of very brief cuts. It's literally   impossible to get a wider picture and understanding of what is going. Many scenes could have been quite impressive if they had just been shot at a wider angle and held a longer frame. This does not happen once though. The breakneck speed at which the cuts are made (close up of car headlights-exploding box-back wheel-driver-back to headlights) just doesn't allow the chase to flow and is frustrating to watch. How can one appreciate what's happening when they can't even see what's happening?

Selena Gomez may be trying to break out of her Disney image (and good for her) but that doesn't mean she's suited to every role. Her performance here feels weak and definitely isn't helped by an even weaker dialogue. Ethan Hawke's performance is more believable, but it's only one taste bud of sweetness in the overall bad taste this movie leaves. 

There's pretty much zero laughs, the first half is filled with the characters bickering annoyingly, the chase scenes are visually unwatchable, it's painfully unnecessarily noisy and the plot is nothing but mediocre. 

Fortunately I viewed the film at an advance screening and therefore given it was free I just felt disappointed, rather than feeling ripped off as I would have had I actually handed over my hard earned dollars in exchange for that mess. I tried my best to enjoy the film, but to be honest all I wanted to do was getaway.

This story is a poor excuse for a high speed car ride. The plot does not make much sense, and is not believable. Selena Gomez's character is annoying.

Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke), a once promising race car driver who flamed out now lives in Bulgaria with his wife, Leanne (Rebecca Budig). On Christmas Eve, he returns home to find his home in disarray with his wife missing. A mysterious voice (Jon Voight) calls Brent telling him that if he wishes to see his wife again he'll follow a series of instructions beginning with stealing a reinforced Shelby Mustang. Over the course of the evening Brent is told to cause mayhem and destruction across the city of Sofia and along the way must work with the Mustang's true owner (Selena Gomez) to try and survive.

Released in the late August dumping ground of 2013, the movie is a co-production between Courtney Solomon's After Dark Films and Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment. Upon release the film was savaged by critics and drew comparisons to another poorly reviewed action flop Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Getaway is not as bad as Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, but much like Ballistic Getaway is a series of chases and explosions barely held together with actors sleepwalking their way through a derivative exercise in c-level regurgitation.

The movie's leads consist of overly stoic Ethan Hawke and non-step repetitive complaining at the top of her lungs Selena Gomez and both have no chemistry. Both are given the barest minimum when it comes to character, and in Gomez' case she doesn't even get a name simply being credited as "the kid". Gomez was nominated for worst actress in this role and while it's not good, I don't think Gomez is entirely to blame as she played a similar character type in The Fundamentals of Caring and was better suited to the material in that movie. But easily the worst performance in the film is Jon Voight who's absolutely Seagal-esque in how little movement he's called on to do and spends most of the movie literally phoning it in as the movie's villain "the voice" with occasional breaks to show close-ups of Voight's mouth engulfing foodstuffs or slurping coffee and maybe sneering at computer screens. Voight's basically a diet Simon-Peter Gruber from Die Hard with a Vengeance down to the fact he's sporting an inconsistently applied German-ish accent.

The Simon-Peter Gruber comparison isn't unfounded as the movie basically crimps from 90s action thrillers including Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Chase, and Speed (including recycling the looped footage plot point). The movie crimping plot developments from other action movies could be forgiven if the action were well planned and staged, but despite having wall to wall action your average viewer will be lucky to make out fractions of it. Courtney Solomon's direction hasn't improved much from his work on Dungeons & Dragons or An American Haunting as he stages action sequences by cramming as many car crashes as possible with no thought given to establishing spatial geography or flow of action. While the action is present it's a mess of crash zooms, quick cuts, and shaky cam that makes the action more annoying than engaging. What praise I can give is at least the action is done practically with real cars crashing and being destroyed, but that's about it.

Getaway might've made for a serviceable b-level action thriller had it been directed by an experienced action director and played with more character and/or humor, but as is, it's an empty mindless string of vehicular stunts held together by sticky tape made from superior action films from 20 years ago.

I don't normally take the time to write reviews as I don't feel I have much to add to everyone else's take. But Getaway has been so poorly received, unjustifiably so in my opinion, that I thought I'd weigh in.

This is a popcorn movie. Nothing more. I understood that going in. It's not high art. It doesn't revolutionize movie-making, and is not even the high point of the genre. But it's entertaining, and that's all I ask of a movie. Give me some popcorn and a Coke, and dim the lights, let me forget about the world for a couple hours, and I'm happy.

The two leads are very good in my opinion. Ethan Hawke is a very capable actor, and he brought a depth to his character that I didn't expect. He expressed concern without being overly dramatic or gnashing his teeth or chewing up the scenery, and conveyed his character's limitations without appearing dumb. Selena Gomez was bright, and had the expected attitude of someone her character's age without being precocious or annoying.

Most of the plot was admittedly easy to figure out early on, but the movie still provided plenty of excitement in how it got there. There were some aspects of the story that were dismissed without explaining a lot of detail, but it didn't rely on otherwise smart people doing dumb things to make it all work, and I appreciated that as well.

I've read criticisms by others concerning the "shaky-cam" technique during the chase scenes. I didn't find that to be a problem in the least. It was much less annoying or even apparent than in movies like Transformers. I found everything was easy to follow and served the story well - I didn't think any style choices got in the way. And there was one street-level point of view sequence that I thought was especially well done - presumably a single take - that gave me a real rush.

Overall, I enjoyed Getaway, but that may be in part because I went in with low expectations due to its opening weekend box office and some negative reviews. With stiff competition this summer there are certainly better choices for your entertainment dollar. I don't know if I'd even consider this in the top ten or twenty films this year. But for cheap ticket at a matinée or second-run theater, or later as a rental it's an entertaining diversion.