Sunday, August 4, 2024

Getaway (2013)

 When I first saw previews for 'Getaway', I thought it seemed as though producers had drawn three names at random out of a hat and wrote a movie around them. Finally seeing the flick more then a decade later that initial assessment still feels kinda true. Ethan Hawke is an American racecar driver whose Bulgarian wife is kidnapped by a nefarious group headed by Jon Voight. Voight instructs Hawke to perform various reckless activities through the streets of Sofia or else his wife will be killed.

 Selena Gomez is the owner of the car that Voight's crew has rigged up with camera equipment to monitor things. In trying to retrieve her car she ends up stuck with Hawke, who at first she gives a hard time but later comes to sympathize with. Also Gomez's character is improbably the daughter of a sort of mob banker and poses extensive automotive and computer skills; I never bought it.

 With better hands at the writting and directing this might have been a fun movie, there's certainly potential there. What we get instead is a very unexciting action movie lacking in real characters and stakes. It's a go through the motions kind of film, which feels more like it was made as part of some sort of tax scheme then as a legitimate movie.*

No comments: