The experience will leave you on the edge-of-your-seat because you’ll be fighting the urge to, well, get away. Getaway is, without a doubt, the worst movie of the year.
Former NASCAR driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) is forced into a death match when his wife is taken hostage by a mysterious man known only as “The Voice” (voiced by Jon Voight). The Voice forces Magna to race about town in a stolen Shelby “Super Snake” Mustang, destroying any structure in his path. The Voice’s endgame is to heist sensitive financial data from a Bulgarian banking firm, and have Magna serve as the fall guy. Selena Gomez is the owner of Magna’s stolen wares, she is known in this film as, “The Kid”. The Kid tracks down her stolen Mustang, only to be pulled into the Voice’s dangerous plot.
In a narrative reminiscent of Die Hard with a Vengeance, the protagonist couple work together to complete each task assigned by “The Voice”, in order to save Magna’s wife. What follows, is a careless demolition derby through the streets of Sofia, Bulgaria.
Immediately, the sharpest criticism is attributed to the unintentional comic-relief that is the appalling dialogue. Voight is reduced to lame one-liner style deliveries. He is a caricature of a villain, no more intimidating than a bullish tele-creditor. The film continues to spiral out-of-control with the introduction of pouty Selena Gomez, the second nameless principle, though I was hard-pressed to care. She just so happens to own the souped-up ‘Stang, is the bank CEO’s daughter, and can easily hack into any network (somehow without an internet connection), because she can. Gomez is about as believable as her seemingly invincible, infinitely fueled, muscle car.
The real issue here, however, is Courtney Solomon. The director known for his dreadful Dungeons and Dragons cross-over, simply made a shoddy action flick. I’m not a snob when it comes to action, I can appreciate a dumbed-down high-speed racer. But a line has to be drawn somewhere. Solomon scribbles that line at about the 20-minute mark when he begins feeding Hawke a never-ending supply of police cruisers to force off the road, onto an inconveniently (conveniently) placed exploding ramp. I would have gladly accepted a healthy dose of C.G.I. car chases, to trade-in the sensory assaulting close-up shots, or anything with Gomez disapproving of Magna’s driving skill, which happens often.
The name says it all. I can give points to mindless entertainment, but Getaway is chock-full of the former and completely void of the latter. Do yourself a favor, avoid this traffic accident.
Feature Author
Movie Reelist Contributor: Chris Giroux
Comments
My attention and hopes were Gone in Sixty Seconds. Outside of the cool Ford Mustang Shelby there wasn’t anything positive to take away from this. The acting (or overacting) was like a Bullitt to the head over and over. The plot was weak and continued to get weaker as more was revealed. I was moving Fast and Furious towards the exit as soon as the credits started rolling. I just needed to Getaway from this debacle of a movie. All movie puns were intended.