Getaway

'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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The "plot" follows Former race car driver Brent Magna (Played by Ethan Hawke.) Who discovers that his wife has been kidnapped by a mysterious man referred to as the Voice,(Played by Jon Voight.) Who promises to promises to return her to safety if he completes a series of broad and laughable tasks while driving through the streets of Sofia, Bulgaria in a supped up Shelby Super Snake Mustang. Along the way, he runs into the original owner of the Mustang named "The Kid" (Played by Selena Gomez.)

Now, at first glance it's very easy to see that this movie's plot and characters are there to serve as a backdrop for the action, which would at least be tolerable, if the action was any good, sadly that is not the case here. Getaway is weighted Down by it's clunky script and frantic direction. The action sequences are unwatchable, consisting of exhaustingly monotonous and poorly edited car chases. And in the rare moments where it escapes that monotony, it usually crosses the border into unintentional hilarity.

The Acting is terrible. Though in Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez' defense, the horrible dialogue (which consists mostly of sh*t and a**hole) is to more to blame then they are.

Never has a movie been more apply titled than "Getaway". Because it's warning you to "Getaway" and avoid this clunker at all costs.

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.

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.