The Movie Waffler New Release Review - Getaway | The Movie Waffler

New Release Review - Getaway

A former race-car driver becomes a pawn in a game played out by the stranger who kidnapped his wife.

Directed by: Courtney Solomon
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight, Paul Freeman, Rebecca Budig


Arriving at his home in Sofia, Bulgaria, former race-car driver Brent Magna (Hawke) finds the place trashed and his wife (Budig) missing. Receiving a phone call from a German accented stranger (Freeman), Magna is ordered to steal a specific high performance car, fitted with cameras, from a parking garage. The stranger forces Magna to drive recklessly, attracting the attention of the local police and causing major damage in the process, otherwise, he's told, his wife will be executed. While parked and awaiting further instructions, a young girl (Gomez), brandishing a pistol, barges into the car. When Magna overpowers her and takes her gun, the stranger's voice orders him to keep her in the car. While following the stranger's orders, Magna and the girl try to figure out a way to escape their predicament and rescue Magna's wife.
Getaway was released Stateside back in August but only now gets a European release. It seemed odd that it should be held back for so long but releasing it in December actually makes perfect sense, for two reasons. 1. The film is set at Christmas. 2. It's one of the year's biggest turkeys.
Courtney Solomon's film, from a script by first time writers (and boy, does it show) Gregg Maxwell Parker and Sean Finegan, is such a monumental disaster it should be essential viewing for all students of film. If you want to learn how not to write, direct, shoot and edit a motion picture, Getaway is an educational goldmine.
It's baffling how a script this nonsensical could have made it to the screen in the state we're presented with. The plot rambles as though it's being made up on the spot and even after the closing credits have rolled you'll be scratching your head as to what you just witnessed. We don't know the first thing about Magna's wife yet we're expected to believe her life is somehow worth more than the dozens of Bulgarian cops and civilians killed and maimed by Magna in his quest to save her. On the evidence of this, A Good Day To Die Hard and Fast & Furious 6, Hollywood seems to think it's perfectly fine to kill countless Europeans so long as our American heroes make it out alive.
Solomon employs the shaky cam technique, the classic fallback for film-makers who are clueless as to how to construct action scenes. The movie is essentially one long car chase but we're denied whatever pleasure such a concept might afford us by his successful attempts to make the action disorienting and headache inducing. There's one fantastic shot near the end that holds for roughly a minute and reminds us how thrilling car chases can be but it's a standout in 90 minutes of amateurish garbage.
The film ends with a final plot twist that's nonsensical and pointless, as is the movie itself.
1/10


Eric Hillis