Review: Getaway

Ethan Hawke stars as a former professional race car driver who left the industry after being branded too dangerous. Now he is being forced by a mostly unseen mystery man (the decidedly un-mysterious Jon Voight, with an “Anaconda”-level bad Germanic accent), to take a heavily-armoured Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake and drive it wherever the hell he tells him to, in as reckless and destructive manner as need be. You see, Voight (who communicates with Hawke through the car’s speakers and has cameras all over the car’s interior) has nabbed Hawke’s wife and will kill her if Hawke does not do exactly what he tells him to do. Car chases and vehicular homicides en masse ensue. In Bulgaria, I might add. Meanwhile, there’s also the little matter of the car’s young owner (Selena Gomez), who hops into the passenger seat demanding Hawke give her the car back. Girl, you just walked into something you have no idea about. No worries, though, Voight lets the girl come along for the fun and games too. Just why is Voight asking Hawke to drive in such a crazy manner and causing chaos on the streets of Sofia, Bulgaria? Bruce Payne plays Voight’s chief henchman, and Paul Freeman turns up at the end in a role best discovered for yourself.

 

From what I understand, this 2013 film has about a 3% rating on the popular RottenTomatoes.com, which is absolutely pitiful. The critics gave this one a royal shit-kicking. I don’t think my reviews make it to RottenTomatoes.com, and even if they did, I don’t think that rating would change. But damn it, I liked this film and I’ll wear that proudly. Well, until I see the film a second time one day and wonder what the hell I was thinking. But until that day, flame away, haters, this is a speedy, nifty little B-movie (It’s from Dark Castle, B-movies are their thing) that barely stopped long enough for me to think about its implausibility. In the moment, I enjoyed it. Well, aside from Jon Voight’s dodgy accent, but more on that later.

 

Not yet another remake of the 70s Steve McQueen film, but nonetheless a somewhat like-minded, car-centric film, this 2013 film from director Courtney Solomon (perhaps best known for the failed “Dungeons and Dragons”) is essentially one big-arse car chase film. I was particularly pleased with the way Solomon and cinematographer Yaron Levy (the 2013 crapfest “Fright Night II”) chose to shoot this film. At times they are working with low levels of light on DV, but at no point did it get murky or monochromatic. Solomon proves himself quite the visual stylist, even if I’m a philistine when it comes to digital filmmaking. Best of all, it is shot relatively free of the shakes. Also, this film probably contains the most cop cars (and other vehicles) destroyed on camera since “The Blues Brothers”. I honestly can’t believe that no one died whilst doing stunts on this film, it contains some of the most reckless driving of any motion picture I’ve ever seen (all crashes are apparently real and free of CGI, according to IMDb. Make of that what you will), and kept me buckled-in throughout. The car chases are excellently done, especially the climactic one, which is superlative and contains one very long, unbroken POV shot that almost deserves a standing ovation. The main car used in the film, supposedly a Shelby Super Snake Mustang, is freaking insane, and apparently so rare (and presumably mucho expensive) that the company had to make cars specifically for use in this film. If you love your cars, you’ll love this one, for sure.

 

Does the film have flaws? Sure. The music score by Justin Caine Burnett was probably the biggest irritant for me, it sounded cheap and video game-esque. I also didn’t like Jon Voight putting on an unnecessary, poor ‘foreign’ accent for the film. It’s silly and unconvincing, and the actor is barely making an effort here. I also thought it was stupid that they tried to hide his face for 99.99% of the film. It was so obviously him from the very start that the big deal they try to make out of the reveal is laughable. Selena Gomez was also a sore point for me in this film. Her actual performance was accomplished enough for me to think that she might be quite good in another role in another film, but she is all kinds of wrong her. Tiny and cherub-faced, she looks barely older than a toddler, and cast as a muscle car enthusiast and troubled rich girl (who dabbles in computer hacking) she is completely miscast. She tries her best, but no dice. The girl didn’t look tall enough to see over the steering wheel without a booster seat let alone look old enough to have a licence to drive, let alone convincingly play someone with a genuine interest and knowledge of cars. Didn’t buy her at all, couldn’t they have at least cast someone slightly more ‘streetwise’ looking, Kat Dennings maybe? She also didn’t convince as the type to move to Bulgaria, even under duress. Character actor Bruce Payne deserves a mention here. The poor fella has gone from playing the villain in “Passenger 57”, to replacing Julian Sands as the title character in the “Warlock” film series, to a mere bit part in this. Presumably doing his “Dungeons and Dragons” director a favour, he’s a pretty decent actor and deserves much better than a mere walk-on, if you ask me, and so does Paul Freeman, a veteran character actor you might remember from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. It was a shame Solomon didn’t utilise their (modest but undeniable) talents more.

 

Amazingly, these flaws (and the notion of so many non-Bulgarians hanging out in Bulgaria) don’t detract too much from the overall product, and Ethan Hawke, unusual choice for this kind of thing or not (you’d think Nic Cage would’ve jumped at this script), provides an immediately likeable and empathetic protagonist. And that’s important given he probably injures the fuck out of a lot of people in this film, possibly even killing them, in addition to the massive auto carnage.

 

Minimalist and high-concept schlock to its core, you’d swear it was written by Larry Cohen (Expedient high-concept thrillers like “Phone Booth” and “Cellular”), but the script is credited to debutants Sean Finegan and Gregg Maxwell Parker. I know it’s silly as hell and probably has a million credibility gaps, but during its 90 minutes (Unlike the drearily overextended and mistitled “Speed”), I didn’t give a crap. I was too busy being on edge and hanging on for dear life…which is weird because I was sitting in a wheelchair at the time, not a muscle car.

 

If you like all car chases all the time, this one’s for you, and if you loathe cars, well you’ve hopefully stopped reading by now anyway. I’m not much of a revhead really, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the film on a completely mindless, in-the-moment level. It’s the best “Fast and the Furious” movie to never be associated with that mediocre franchise. Add me to the 3%, officially or unofficially, but 97% of you are wrong on this one. Just bear in mind that I’m also the only person who enjoyed Solomon’s previous “An American Haunting”.

 

Rating: B-