Getaway Movie Review
Films like this will definitely make you want to get away.
I like to believe that movies should be like DNA or fingerprints in that no two should be the same. This is an attitude that runs into some rough spots when I see clear remakes like Red Dawn or Footloose, but I am more interested in the idea that each movie, for good or ill, has something to make it distinct from all the other movies out there.
The distinguishing characteristic of this film (and the best way to describe it) is lazy. I don’t think I have seen a film this consistently lazy in years. This isn’t the kind of lazy one finds in someone who wants to take the afternoon off so he can take a nap in the park while work is piling up. That’s amateur lazy as far as this film is concerned. This is the kind of lazy you find in someone who wallows in a pigsty composed of his own filth and dead skin cells, refusing to move unless there is actual danger of death and keeping his mouth open in hopes of a fly or spider crawling down his throat, saving him the effort of picking up nearby dead cockroaches and actually masticating them.
Everything that smacks of effort is avoided like a plagued skunk. A believable story and motivation is hard to write, so let’s just write down of the ramblings of the homeless meth addict down the street, run it through Google translator, and call it a day. Stunt driving choreography is hard work, so we’ll just shoot a bunch of cars driving and flipping and edit together later. Hiring people who speak with a Bulgarian accent (or even Bulgarian) might take more than 10 minutes so lets just hire the usual suspects with perfect American accents (even the wife who is supposed to be Bulgarian). Acting coaches cost money so we’ll just run on the assumption that all of our actors can pull any scene needed just by looking good. Good direction costs is expensive too, especially when a decent director wants to re-shoot bad scenes (hey, film doesn’t grown on trees you know) so we’ll just hire whatever bozo is drinking free coffee at SAG headquarters (for the record I just made that up and really don’t know anything about director Courtney Solomon. He may secretly be another Scorsese but his only two other directing credits are an American Haunting from 2006 and Dungeons and Dragons from 2000. These films garnered a 12% and 10% Rotten Tomatoes rating respectively so I guess the joke is on me).
Ethan Hawke seems to have adopted the Star Trek approach to film career in that he alternates between really great and really toxic projects. He goes from Before Midnight to this medical waste. I first saw him in one of my favorite movies, Training Day, only to have to see him do Daybreakers. He is the Dr. Jeckle/Mr. Hyde of movie careers, and this one is clearly a Mr. Hyde experience.
Selena Gomez was obviously included in this film in an attempt to draw young viewers (and capitalize on the freakish and inexplicable success of Spring Breakers, the movie equivalent of whooping cough) but my God did she feel forced into this film. I am in almost all ways a fan of hot women in films so you can imagine how grating for me she had to be for me to say I absolutely hated her character with the force of 10,000 wet concrete tsunamis. Every scene with her felt fake as hell and she ground on my last raw nerve like a cheese grater. I’m sure she’s a lovely person and I know she has had some great Disney success, but she just can’t pull “street” in any way. Also, if the movie is already PG-13 it’s OK to have her or any other human female show more than 2% of their skin. She was literally in a hoodie the entire film. If she isn’t down with showing a little skin (something I can say based on past films she probably doesn’t have a problem with) then find some beach scene to show us for no reason. It would not be any more out of place than any other scene in this film, and there is only so much Ethan Hawke’s face and/or Budapest police cars flipping I can take in one sitting.
Speaking of the police in this film, it looks they all trained with Roscoe P. Coltrane at the Hazzard County School of Police Driving (Dukes image courtesy of the Retro TV Show t shirt category). Somehow they can’t drive down a road without flipping a car, and it appears the city of Sofia has an inexhaustible supply of police cars and a religious aversion to setting up road blocks or spike traps. The car chase scenes (or rather, the majority of the film) got so ridiculous that after a while I had to make the film more tolerable by pretending that instead of driving around the main guy had telekinetic powers and was flipping the cars around with his mind (if you watch this bomb it actually makes it a better film).
I suppose at some point I should get into what can laughingly be called the story, but let me talk a minute about the villain. All great action films are based around the antagonist, and the more engaging and interesting the hero’s enemy is the better the film. In this film the villain is a faceless, motivation-less voice on the phone who seems to be being a dick just because…honestly I don’t know. I can’t even say he’s just a dick since we learn absolutely nothing about him. The lack of a villain made this film extremely hard to latch on to. Also what was the deal with this guys plan? He needs Ethan Hawke’s character to drive around causing havoc and his whole multi billion dollar plan is centered around this, but then he gives Brent (Hawke’s character) about a million chances to mess up and ruin the whole thing. First off Brent has to steal the car from a high security garage where it had been left for him to use. What if the mirrors had been misaligned and Brent ran the thing into a wall? Every scene is a perfect chance for this car to hang itself on a guard rail or break it’s suspension driving down some stairs, but Brent doing all this is critical to the plan to steal steal 2 billion Euros? Why did he even need to extort Brent into doing this anyway? He managed to hire guys to impersonate him and take the fall, probably incurring decades of prison time and a few other guys to murder policemen and die in horrific motorcycle accidents. Why not just hire a couple of good drivers? The whole plan was a steaming pile of stupid, and without knowing anything about the villain you can’t understand why this plan is anything but the adolescent fantasies of two 16 year old guys who play way too much GTA.
Of course. I just checked IMDB and the two writers have no other writing credits. When did script writing become something you called the local temp agency to get done in an afternoon?
Ugh. The story. Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke-Training Day, the Purge, Gattaca) has to steal a specific car because his Bulgarian wife (Rebecca Budig-Guiding Light, All My Children, Batman Forever) has been kidnapped. (For the record his Bulgarian wife speaks flawless English). He steals the Chevy Cobra and finds it covered in cameras. The voice on the phone tells him to go on a pedestrian mall driving rampage and escape the inept police. He then is told to wait in a garage where Selena Gomez (her film credit lists her character as the Kid, but I refuse to cater to that level of sloth. Oh, yeah. Selena Gomez-Another Cinderella Story, Spring Breakers, Monte Carlo) jumps in the car and holds a gun on him. He gets the gun away and finds out that the car was hers before it was stolen and rather than let the police handle it she opted to find a gun and take care of business (also for the record, she has a face that belongs on the Disney channel. Seeing her try to be some kind of bad ass is painfully laughable).
Anyway, at that point the voice (credited as the Voice, to my mounting frustrating) orders Brent to kill her but then when he refuses tells him she is integral to his plan (see what I mean about stupid? What if Brent was a little more cold blooded, or she had reminded him of an ex girlfriend who dumped him and he capped her? How does the plan progress?). Anyway, imagine about an hour of watching someone play Grand Theft Auto for another hour and you have all of Act II down. The plan is to steal data related to off shore accounts so the Voice can pocket it all. Brent and Selena eventually sort of turn the tables but then it turns out it was all part of the Voice’s incredibly complex plan anyway. In the end everyone wins (except for the guy the Voice paid to take the fall and rot in prison for years).
The stars.
Umm. Hmm. I could say the car was pretty cool, but I am more of a classic muscle car guy. This is awkward. I honestly can’t think of anything, and I really am trying. A film with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Zero stars.
The black holes.
The only way the story could have been more juvenile and ass backwards would be if it had been written by a group of 12 year old boys who had all recently suffered severe blunt trauma to the head. Three black holes. The disparity of a hot girl that I hate so much in the Selena Gomez character might have finally turned me gay (I wish. Unfortunately I am still into women. I say unfortunately because it seems like none of them are into me). Two black holes. The villains plan was so stupid and ridiculously complicated that it would have failed had Brent farted at the wrong time. One black hole. The villain sucked. One black hole. The driving action sucked on the side of ridiculousness. One black hole. No driving stunt choreographer to speak of. It seems like the director was programmed with “10 Police Car Drives. 20 Police Car Flips Over. 30 GOTO 10”. One black hole. Quick cut action sequencing. One black hole. There was one long sequence towards the end that was clearly sped up footage. One black hole. The fact that they filmed the entire movie in Sofia, Bulgaria but had no one in the film speak Bulgarian or even with a real accent. One black hole. The “plot twist” at the end can be summed up with the statement “Remember that bad guy you were chasing? Well, the guy you caught is not the bad guy and the real bad guy is still in a club around the world. Surprise!” (oops. Spoiler alert). One black hole. Dialog so bad you will wish you were deaf and only spoke in ASL. One black hole. Overall a tremendous waste of time and brain cells. Two black holes. Total: sixteen black holes.
A total of sixteen black holes!!! Possibly a new record. Is this film really this bad? I can say without qualm or hesitation yes. It is grindingly awful. It has a 2% score on Rotten Tomatoes and even that feels generous. It is 90 minutes you will regret losing and never see again. Pass. Date movie? Only if your date is a Real Doll and even then she will probably be bored. Bathroom break? Since the writers and director seem to have just gone to the bathroom all over the screen odds are this film could be considered one long break.
Thanks for reading. Almost done with my last convention for a while so more to see soon. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments here on this film or my review. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Pain and Gain Movie Review
Not 100% painless.
This movie is a bit of a conundrum for me in that here I am 24 hours later and I still can’t decide if I liked it or not. There were parts that I enjoyed. There were parts that annoyed me. I did like the fact that this is a true story, which makes it extra cool. However the movie’s comedy is so at odds with the grim real life content that I can’t figure out what the tone was (or if there was even an attempt at a tone).
I did learn something important during the course of this film and that is I have been spelling Michael Bay’s name wrong for the last three years. I thought it was spelled Bey. I will apologize to him when he apologizes to me for making me sit through 30+ minutes of Shia LaBeouf attempting to inject himself into the working world like the wimpiest plague ever in the last Transformers movie (actually how about an apology for Shia LaBeouf in the whole series in general? Michael Bay, you owe me a coke).
Now that I have settled the matter of spelling his name I realize that the parts of the movie I enjoyed had little or nothing to do with the direction. I said when I reviewed Snitch that I have somehow become a Dwayne Johnson fan. In that review I said one of the reasons I liked him is that he seemed to have a good sense of humor and is the kind of guy I could have a drink with. He doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously (Christian Bale, I’m looking at you) and that shows up in a really positive light here. He was easily my favorite character in this film, and the chemistry he had with Mark Wahlberg was really enjoyable.
Given that most of his movies involve CGI robots who deliver a better performance than any of the human actors I am at a loss how Bay managed to assemble such a crew of accomplished actors and get a great performance out of all of them. Not just Johnson and Wahlberg, but even the secondary characters like Tony Shalhoub and Rob Corddry were rock solid. This is why I am not inclined to give Bay credit for the parts of the movie I enjoyed. The best parts were the actors and their interaction, which is more a reflection on their individual talent than the director. Makes me wonder what a great director like Scorsese could have done with this cast and story.
I will however give Bay just due for all the parts that bugged me. For one thing this film is a painfully long 130 minutes and believe me you will feel every grindtastic one of them. The fact that the ending is revealed in the first 30 seconds pretty much drains the suspense from the film, although by the end of the second hour I was having a hard time remembering my dad, much less how the film started. There is a voice over monolog but the voice shifts depending on who the camera is focused on. The final denouement is delivered by a guy we don’t even meet until 2/3rd of the way through the film yet he acts like he was there the whole time. Bay has a love of back story that manifests itself in a life montage of pretty much every character, including the stripper. It’s one of those things that’s like a 7 out of 10 the first time he does it and loses a point every time after that. He also managed to take three fairly cool, interesting characters and turn two of them into flat, two dimensional stereotypes by the third act (Johnson’s character stayed cool throughout the end, but that was because he was constantly evolving). Speaking of acts, I had a hard time figuring out where they were. The instead of a story arc the movie felt like a flat line.
The biggest issue here is the tone. This is the true life story of the grisly murder and dismemberment of two people and the kidnapping and torture of another man and Bay transformed (haw!) it into the Three Stooges Meet Hercules. A fictional comedy is one thing but making light of the death of real people is more than a little off putting. The humor actually ramps up along with the gruesomeness of the film which I found confusing and disconcerting.
The story. (some spoilers coming here, BTW. Nothing really surprising and the real spoiler is delivered by the film in the first minute) Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg-Boogie Nights, Contraband, Entourage) is a body builder and personal trainer who feels like he isn’t being given his share of the American dream. He works and works out at Sun Gym with his friend Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie-Hurt Locker, Real Steel, the Adjustment Bureau). One of his clients is a real ass named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub-Monk, Men in Black, Cars) who has a lot of money. While working there he meets Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson-Snitch, GI Joe Retaliation, Fast Five), an ex con who has found Jesus.
Together they come up with the plan to kidnap Kershaw and torture him into giving them all his stuff. They do so and the torture is considerable. They somehow get hooked up with a stripper (Bar Paly-The Ruins, Stiletto, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) who starts off with Danny but ends up with Paul. The get all of Kershaw’s stuff and attempt to kill him in a burning car and later by running over his head but fail (by this point the spirits of the Three Stooges have possessed these guys).
The police fail to believe Kershaw (if this weren’t based on a true story I would be black holing the hell out of it for lame story. The truth is stranger than fiction) so he is forced to hire a private investigator (Ed Harris-the Rock, a History of Violence, a Beautiful Mind). He pretty much uncovers everything but the police still won’t believe it. Meanwhile Doyle goes back on cocaine and the gang starts to run out of money. They opt to run the same game on local porn kingpin Frank Griga (Micheal Rispoli-Rounders, Kick Ass, the Taking of Pelham 1-2-3) and his girlfriend (Keili Lefkovitz-Malibu’s Most Wanted, Scrapbook, On the Edge of Innocence). Things go badly and they end up killing both of them. They have to dismember the bodies and dump them in the swamp.
The Stars:
Dwayne Johnson knocked this one out of the park. One star. His chemistry with Mark Wahlberg was really fun to see. One star. The entire rest of the cast was really good. Two stars. Based on a really weird real story. Two stars. A smattering of nice gratuitous nudity. One star. Generally a fun experience. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The Black Holes:
Long, long movie. Towards the last 40 minutes you keep expecting this thing to end and it never does. Then, when you hit what is set up to be the ending it still doesn’t end. The last 20 minutes could have been covered with a 1 minute “Where are they now” montage ala Animal House. One black hole. The inappropriate comedic tone was distracting. One black hole. The repeated monolog with shifting voices was kind of annoying. One black hole. So were the continuous back story pieces. The really felt like extra padding. One black hole. By the end of the film two of the three characters had shifted from being cool to being cartoon characters (I believe this is the direct result of the movie dragging on too long. There is only so much of an outrageous character we can absorb before he starts becoming ridiculous). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a grand total of four stars. 
I can honestly say once I get past my Transformers fan boy-ism that this is probably the best Michael Bay film I have seen (Decepticon Logo from my retro TV Show t-shirts collection). While that may or may not be saying much I did enjoy this film. It’s worth seeing just for Dwayne and Mark, plus the fact that it’s based on a true story. Nothing on the screen would require a big theater so if you don’t want to go out wait for NetFlix. Date movie? Kind of. However if she is turned on by yoked out muscular guys and you aren’t one of those I would steer clear. Bathroom break? There are a number of scenes that are pretty redundant. Once it is established what they are trying to do most of the torture scenes could be missed. Also there is a bizarre scene towards the end where Danny is trying to establish himself in the local community by forming a neighborhood watch that is five minutes of your life wasted so I’d go then. With a movie this long you will probably need it.
Thanks for reading. I’m in LA (a mix of business and Warhammer) and will try to see something down there but won’t be able to write again until Tuesday. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to post here if you see this movie and have a comment. Off topic questions and suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
