Getaway

Cast of Characters:
Brent Magna - Ethan Hawke
The Kid - Selena Gomez
The Voice - Jon Voight
Leanna Magna - Rebecca Budig
Distinguished Man - Bruce Payne

Director - Courtney Solomon
Screenplay - Gregg Maxwell Parker & Sean Finegan
Rated PG-13 for intense action, violence and mayhem throughout, some rude gestures and language

      Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez and Academy Award winner Jon Voight star in the finale to the summer blockbuster season, Getaway.

      Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) is a burned out former race car driver who has been put into a do-or-die mission behind the wheel of a Shelby Mustang Super Snake. The mastermind behind the plan is simply known as The Voice (Jon Voight). He has kidnapped Brent's wife Leanne (Rebecca Budig) and as long as Brent does what The Voice instructs, his wife will be okay. The Voice has wired the car with a number of cameras and is watching every move Brent makes, so any refusal or attempt to get help will result in Leanna getting shot.

      Enter The Kid (Selena Gomez). The Kid is a computer hacker that turns out to be the owner of the car Brent has been forced behind the wheel of. Through her, Brent finds an ally that he sees as his only hope in saving his wife's life.

      So let me spare you the small talk. I hated this movie... Oh, you were probably looking for something a bit more substantial, weren't you? Well, where to begin? How 'bout five minutes into the film, where by then I was already tired of the piss-poor editing job and chaotic camera work. This film was like witnessing what goes inside the mind of an eight year old boy after he got into the canister of sugar in the cupboard and sucked it down dry... and then washed that down with a twelve pack of Red Bull. There's absolutely no thought, no effort, no creativity whatsoever put into any of the action sequences, which basically revolve around a lot of quick cuts bound to make your head spin and how completely inept the Bulgaria police seem to be. I was able run better routes as a six year old slinging Micro Machines into the wall than these morons. Then you have the script which opens with The Voice telling Brent Magna to do a number of idiotic moves that seem to have no rhyme or reason whatsoever other than easily shattering the Guiness World Record for most traffic violations and vehicular manslaughter attempts done within an hour... and for God's sakes on Christmas too... Christmas! What better way to end up on the Naughty List than by completely trashing the Sofia, Bulgaria festivities? By the end of the film, we're only left with one lingering question. What was the fucking point? There's no motive ever explained as to why The Voice is specifically using Brent Magna other than to "smash into as many things as you can". If he was smart he would've picked the Hulk instead. Gets the job done a lot quicker and won't give you any shit back. The more the film tries to "explain" more nonsensical plot through The Kid, concerning how her dad is a rich CEO for an investment bank, the more... well, I just stopped giving a shit. Yeah, I gave away a few spoilers. So sue me. I also saved you 5-10 bucks. Once the end credits started to roll, I just sat there. Waiting. Waiting for something else to come up, something or someone to explain it all. Nope, no explanation. It just ends with no consequence. Voight's villain just walks off like, "Well, that was fun... so, yeah, see yah!" So what if Brent's wife is saved at the end? The characters are so flat and one dimensional I didn't give a shit about their situation to begin with and the more the movie trudged on, the less I cared. In fact, she was probably begging to be shot, 'cause I'm pretty sure they were forcing her to watch this movie. The only thing I wound up caring about the most, or I should say at all, was the car, which really gets battered to shit. Finally, what the hell are Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, and Jon Voight doing here? Well, besides just phoning it in and proving they have no chemistry together. Earlier this year, Hawke starred in another, slightly better, stinker The Purge, but then was able to rebound massively in Beyond Midnight, one of the best films of the year. Did he think Beyond Midnight was good enough for critical praise, so fuck it for the remainder of the year? The same can be said for Gomez. In Spring Breakers, she was wonderful as the sympathetic character of the bunch, opposite Vanessa Hudgens (who gave another strong performance in The Frozen Ground earlier this week). It's no wonder why Jon Voight hardly appears in this film other than his voiceover through the phone and the occasional extreme close-up on his eyes or mouth. He probably took one look at this script and thought, "Hmm... Well, I'm getting paid a shit ton of money, so I'll do it anyway, but I wanna be barely seen in this piece of shit." Then again, he did do Superbabies: Baby Genuises 2... and The Karate Dog.

      Getaway marks the end of the summer blockbuster season, and what a shitty way to bow out. To be fair, a cinematic crap-fest is expected but I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. What this should've been called was One Actor, a Former Disney Tween Queen and an Oscar Winner Laugh Their Way to the Bank. Horribly choppy and fast paced editing, juvenile writing that a brain-dead monkey could out-write, and flat performances based on one dimensional characters: that's what this film amounts to. What keeps this film from getting an F? Well, it was so close, but there was one minute - one minute out of the entire 90 minute run time that I felt they finally got the car chase filmed right in such a way didn't resemble a headache inducing mess... One minute... Then again, fuck it. I give Getaway an F (0 stars).

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