
Rob’s Review: Getaway | Cinedraft

Rob’s Review: Getaway

Getaway on Cinedraft.com
Letter Grade:

The Good:

Good, brainless action
Some interesting shots

The Bad:

Ridiculous premise
Some action shots don't match

Cast & Crew:

Writer: Sean Finegan, Gregg Maxwell Parker
Director: Courtney Solomon
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight, Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake


Getaway gives you pretty much exactly what you expect out of it. The premise itself is utterly ridiculous, but if you turn your brain off it delivers a satisfactory amount of excitement.

 Getaway on Cinedraft.com

Ethan Hawke’s wife is kidnapped, and a mysterious stranger informs him that if he wants to see her again he needs to steal a car that has been specially set up with cameras to watch him and do whatever the mysterious voice tells him for the rest of the night. He picks up a passenger during the night when Selena Gomez tries to steal her car back from Hawke and we find “the voice” has planned this all along.

As I said, the premise is just ridiculous. It depends on “the voice” being pretty much omnipotent, seeing all, knowing all, predicting everything, and being able to magically change anything he wants. It makes no sense logically, but it serves to propel the action. Likewise, Gomez’s character is the stereotypical magical hacker who just happens to be able to tap into video feeds from her iPad and do anything else the writer needs them to do.

Getaway on Cinedraft.comThe film is basically one big chase scene, and the cinematographer’s default choice for chase scenes seems to be “well, let’s throw a GoPro on the hood and use that”. It provides some interesting angles (and one really nice, really long continuous shot from the Shelby’s hood as it veers through traffic), but it also gives us shots that don’t quite seem to match the rest of the shots, pulling you out of the movie a bit.

Getaway is kind of half Speed, and half The Net (without the Sandra Bullock in both cases). It’s mindless entertainment that you don’t need to rush out to see but that you’ll end up stopping to watch when you flip by it on TV in the future.

Rob Bernard (108 Posts)

Rob is the Founder, Editor-in-Chief, and Techie of Cinedraft. He hated Million Dollar Baby. And is really excited about the Ender’s Game movie. More About Me