Getaway (2013)

So despite this films title the plot isn't actually about a getaway no Sir, its more along the lines of someone having to complete missions in a time limit or his wife dies. Yep that's the whole plot in a nutshell, Ethan Hawke is trapped within a souped-up GT500 Super Snake Mustang and must do whatever the mystery voice on his phone says or his kidnapped wife gets it. There are two problems with this concept...1. its completely ridiculous and 2. Hawke picks up Selena Gomez along the way.

First off the mystery voice and lips we see are obviously Jon Voight, there is no mystery at all, its Jon Voight, moving on. The next massively glaring issue is the car, the actual idea behind this film isn't too bad despite playing out like a GTA videogame. The silly thing is the location for this action is Sofia, Bulgaria (for some reason) and generally in that country you probably won't see highly souped-up Mustangs. So the fact that Hawk is tearing around the city doing all these crazy things is completely idiotic because firstly the car stands out like a sore thumb so there is no way in hell you could disappear or be remotely inconspicuous...thusly you'd be spotted a mile away by everybody, and secondly the police would literately lock down the city. The fact Hawke is able to quietly drive around in his burbling Mustang with generally no attention is absurd.

That's the main issue which lets down the entire plot, it just doesn't work, but there are many others. I'm still not really sure why Voight goes to all that trouble with Hawke behind the wheel, surely he could do what he intended stealthily? the fact they cause so much mayhem just means there are tonnes of mobile police units around. On another point I see absolutely no reason why Gomez's character was required. Voight's mystery character sets her up with Hawke but there is no real need for her, she is literately just there to gain a wider audience.

The other thing that really made me giggle to myself was the poorly forced notion that Gomez's character is some kind of petrol head and the Mustang is actually hers...which she modded herself! as if!!. She reels off all this car jargon in a lame attempt to try and make you believe she's a cool cat and she may be of some use to Hawke's character in the film. Of course she is a nerdy techno kid so she does come in handy hacking into all the digital cams that have been fixed around the car and naturally she grows to like Hawke's character and wants to help him blah blah blah.

I'm not saying this film should be anything epic, the film was released under the Dark Castle Entertainment label which is basically a straight to DVD type get up so in affect you get what you pay for. As I said its not all awful though, the idea is sound and its directed well to be honest. Instead of regular filming we see the main two car occupants through the various in-car digi cams which Voight's character uses to watch them. Its nothing that incredible but it adds a nice touch of originality to an otherwise slightly unoriginal idea, it does looks good at times.

The other main hook is the car chases and car wrecks you see throughout the film. Think along the lines of 'Ronin' and you're not far off, its not as slick as that film and the fact its all at night means you don't see everything clearly but I can't deny some of it was impressive. Totally daft how these shitty old Bulgarian police cars manage to keep up with this hyper Mustang (or so we're lead to believe, it ain't no rice racer) and its utterly hilarious how this Mustang gets into so many prangs and collisions but suffers hardly any damage!! Its so obvious they wanted the car to remain intact for as long as possible, to remain recognisable, they were probably under instructions by the folk at Mustang. Unfortunately it adds even more to the already high levels of unrealistic nonsense and takes you out of the film completely. At one point Hawke's character slams the car bonnet first into a police car, shunting him off the road, yet the Mustangs headlights still work with no sign of damage!

Towards the end we do get some twists and turns which kinda work but leave it feeling a bit convoluted. Again in order to gain a wider audience they have cast a real duo of classic bad guys leading up to Voight...enter Bruce Payne and Paul Freeman. Their roles are so so small so don't get excited, like I said they're there just to add a bit of class but really with such small parts anyone could of played their roles. Them being there doesn't change anything or make the film better. Its a throw away flick which is a shame because it could of been much better if they ironed out some of the silliness. There really is so much stuff that just doesn't add up and we don't really learn who Voight's character is or what is overall game plan is, he's just pinching loads of money via computers in an extremely over complicated way it seems. If you like cars/car chases then this may grab your attention, otherwise it offers nothing really.

4/10