Directed By: Courtney Solomon Starring: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight, Bruce Payne, Paul Freeman, Rebecca Budig, and James Maslow
There have been a lot of bad movies this year, and the pain just won't stop for whatever reason. We've had horror movies that have made me cringe at how inept the victims are, spoof movies that have made me wonder how high the writers were during the creative process, and action movies that have made me laugh at their goal to outdo Michael Bay with big explosions and meaningless action sequences. Well, Courtney Solomon descends to the ranks of these other filmmakers this weekend with his action flick Getaway, the film with the most pointless car crashes this year, maybe ever.
Former race car driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) has returned home to his apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria to find that his wife Leanne (Rebecca Budig) has been kidnapped by some unknown assailants. He gets a phone call, and an older gentleman, simply referred to as the Voice (Jon Voight), instructs him to steal a car that's waiting for him in a parking garage nearby and to await his call if he ever wants to see his wife again. When he arrives to steal the car, Mr. Magna finds that the car is wired with cameras and microphones. When the older man calls, he instructs his reluctant driver to begin the first assignment — driving right through the parks and public places where many have gathered this evening during this holiday season. After terrorizing the city with his car and drawing the ire of the cops, Mr. Magna must deal with a Kid (Selena Gomez) trying to carjack him. The Kid’s attempts fail, and she's brought along in this dangerous game of Simon Says with Mr. Magna.
I have a couple of major questions about Getaway. If Mr. Magna is supposed to be driving all night long all over Bulgaria, why didn't he stop for gas? With all that roadwork, he had to be beyond empty at the end of it all. Also, after all of the major stunts and collisions, why didn't the exterior cameras fall off? After all those bumps on the road, those cameras should have been tantamount to roadkill. I ask these questions to point out the most important flaw of Courtney Solomon's Getaway. It doesn't make any damn sense. I could sit here for days dissecting the ways in which this movie is colossally stupid. However, I won't waste your time or my energy. All you need to know is that Getaway sucks. There's no way you could suspend your disbelief and enjoy this mindless action flick.
Solomon makes no attempts to develop an engaging story or interesting characters. Incoherent is the perfect word to describe his work here. His movie can only be strung together by car crashes and defined by how many ways in which those yellow, white, and blue police cars crash. To make matters worse, there's no real conflict resolution because Solomon tries to have his cake and eat it too. He sets up the film so that both the good guy and the bad guy win, but that's not really how an action movie is supposed to work. Someone is supposed to prevail over someone else. Ultimately, it's a really dissatisfying move that just makes this horrendous movie even more unbearable.
It should come as no surprise that Getaway is getting a wasted rating. If you're going to attempt to watch this worthless film with its annoying camerawork and all, you're going to need some tequila slammers. The choice is yours. It's just another entry in this plague of awful movies this year.
