Getaway

Getaway should've been awesome.  As a throwback to car-centric exploitation movies of the 70s, this should've been the movie I couldn't stop raving about.  Instead, it's like walking in on your parents' lovemaking: I wish I'd never seen it and I don't really want to talk about it.

 

But I don't get paid to not talk about movies.

 

Getaway is the story of an American former race car driver (living in Bulgaria) whose wife is kidnapped.  A mysterious caller forces him to steal a Limited Edition Shelby GT500 Super Snake and engage in much high speed mischief... or his wife will die!  Along the way, he picks up an American teenager (living in Bulgaria) who happens to be the owner of the Limited Edition Shelby GT500 Super Snake.  Together they must find a way to save the driver's wife and solve the puzzle of why they're being forced to drive around.

 

I was taught that if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all.  Well, I do have a couple nice things to say about this movie.  The Limited Edition Shelby GT500 Super Snake is awesome.  It's not product placement either.  They "auditioned" cars for the movie.  And the Limited Edition Shelby GT500 Super Snake delivers.  Also, all the car crashes and stunts are real.  That is a truly commendable thing.

 

OK!  Enough with the niceties.  Let's take a look at the bad stuff:

 

1) Getaway was filmed in two parts.  Part one is all the stunts which were filmed in Bulgaria.  Part two is in a Georgia (the state not the country) studio.  Usually this is not a problem.  But for some reason, the director chose to use professional movie cameras for the studio scenes and crappy dashboard cameras for the Bulgaria.  The movie doesn't take place in both Bulgaria and Georgia either.  It's all in Bulgaria.  So the clean, professional shots are intercut with footage that looks horrendous.  This makes the horrible footage look even worse!  It's like cutting scenes from The Fast and the Furious into the TV show Cash Cab.

 

2) In order for the mysterious caller to monitor the driver, the Limited Edition Shelby GT500 Super Snake is outfitted with dozens of little cameras.  It looks awful but they are at least supposed to be there.  But those little cameras provide the photography for the actual film too, allowing shots to be captured from inside the crashes.  Unfortunately, these ugly cameras are all over the other cars in the movie.  They shouldn't be and a minimum of digital work would remove them.  But, like the camerawork, they were just too lazy.

 

3) The editing is awful.  If you're going to make a movie where you crash real vehicles for the enjoyment of others, you should at least allow those people to see the vehicles crash.  Instead, we get a mess of shots where you can almost see a car crash.

 

4) Selena Gomez is terrible.  She gives one of the worst performances of 2013.  Just dreadful.  (And she says "Limited Edition Shelby GT500 Super Snake" a lot.)

 

There's plenty more awfulness I could mention, but you get the idea.  It's a bad movie.  You'd be better off seeking out some of the movies that Getaway is inspired by.  Or play Grand Theft Auto.  Either way, you're better off not wasting your time on this one. 

 

2.5 out of 10