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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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.

According to another user, this movie is "brainless fun", which I really must contend with. This movie sure is brainless, but there isn't much fun to be found here. The script is dismal, the central plot makes no sense, and the chase sequences are edited in the contemporary shaky-cam style that makes it hard to tell what is going on at some points, which really gets my goat. The whole reason I went to see this movie is to see some kick-butt car cinematography, but there is better, free content on youtube that I could have watched to whet my appetite(like Ken Block's gymkhana series or vintage rally B-group footage). To say that I am disappointed would be a lie, I had a feeling this movie would be a dud because they hardly marketed it at all and released at the end of summer, which is always a bad sign.

Ethan Hawke's performance may be the only redeemable part of this movie, as I could really tell he was working hard to make the 11th grade level dialog work. Selena Gomez's acting was predictably sub-par, it seems to me the only reason she was included in Getaway was to get guys my age into the theater. And if the two other dudes in the theater besides my friends and I are evidence, it didn't work.

In short, don't waste your time on Getaway, watch The Transporter or Top Gear instead to get your gearhead action fix.

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 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