The Getaway

Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger were a married couple when they portrayed the married McCoys in this 1994 remake of the 1972. Their on-screen chemistry is incredible. Any time you get this kind of casting occurrence in a film, it is at least worth checking out. Here it really works.

The thing that distinguishes this Jim Thompson story is the catch-22 Carol McCoy is faced with- and the percussive effect her necessary action has on the McCoy couple- while the tension is ratcheted up to 11- in their non-stop hour-and-a-half getaway throughout the Southwest.

It is a juicy role for a married couple, and Baldwin & Basinger make the most of it. They both are in prime form here and very compelling to watch together.

Besides the McCoys (and Richard Farnsworth), it is a B film. Michael Madson's hair is a real challenge to deal with. At least you can cut out of the Richard Marx end credit song. You have to live with Michael Madson's hair for the whole ride. IMDb rating should be around 7.

Way back when, pulp novelist genius Jim Thompson wrote "The Getaway." It was about a man and a woman who teamed up to rob. It has been filmed twice. About 12 people argue on IMDb about which is the better version. I am one of those arguing that the second version is better.

The first version in 1972 was directed by Sam Peckinpah and had a stellar (at the time) cast including Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah. Among the character actors were legends Al Letteiri, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers and Slim Pickens.

There is no doubt this is an outstanding movie.

Here's the big difference -- Ali McGraw Vs. Kim Basinger. Kim B. blows Ali M. out of the water. Seriously, the whole contest rides on this and Kim so totally takes charge in the second movie there is no competition.

I won't talk about the sex scene between Kim and Alec Baldwin, who is her husband. Why? They deserve their privacy. Even though we saw ... lots.

Bottom line: This movie requires a tough broad. Ali McGraw? Fugeddabout it! No way. Kim, you relentless female tough woman, you rule here.

Kim Basinger? This is a woman who does not look ridiculous handling a nine. But she's also vulnerable in the back of a garbage truck. Alec, you are one lucky guy.

And, Richard Farnsworth has the role that Slim Pickens played in the original. Tough call. I say equal props.

Bottom line? The remake has more ... coolness. 'Nuff said.

Roger Donaldson's remake of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 gangster movie classic "The Getaway" is alright, but cannot - as many remakes - reach the power, humor and style of the original version. There are some plus points - the bloody and lengthened showdown in the hotel at the end tries to overpower the impact of the original version, and it works.

There are some good supporting roles from James Woods and Michael Madsen (with dreadful hair style that belongs rather into an Ace Ventura or Wayne's World movie). The plot, even many story details, are just repetitions of the Peckinpah movie, but the tempo of the film is okay as well.

Otherwise there are also too many low points: the score is boring and can't compete with Quincy Jones' original jazz funk fusion grooves. The photography is to clean despite all the Mexican dust and sometimes too MTV style and without the dirty atmosphere that was typical for many Peckinpah movies.

Kim Basinger is alright in the Ali McGraw role, but Alec Baldwin is trying too hard to copy an image of Steve McQueen which isn't working at all. The dialogues aren't as witty as with McQueen and McGraw, and Donaldson would have done a far better job if he could have managed to give an individual life to this picture instead of just doing a 1994 techno grunge remix of an early seventies classic.

Anyway, if you like to watch an entertaining contemporary gangster and road movie, the 1993 version of "The Getaway" is still fun to watch. But if you have the choice to take the original VHS or DVD, skip the remake.

The Getaway is a remake of the action classic that stared Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. Now I haven't seen the original so I can't compare the two but by it self this is an OK action thriller. It goes old school with its desert/western setting, bad criminals and finale stand off. The story is simple Doc McCoy (Alec Baldwin), his wife (Kim Basinger) and his partner (Michael Madsen) are hired to get a man out of prison. When the job goes sour, McCoy is locked up for a year in a Mexican prison. With the help of his wife and a Phoenix crime boss Jack Benyon (James Woods), he released and hired to do one more job. This job goes semi good but after it has been done many people end up dead and the McCoys are on the run from many different people all with their eyes on the large amount of cash they have. The performances are OK. Baldwin is the American version of Pierce Brosnan. He's much more calm, composed and edgier than Pierce. Basinger is tough yet still has that soft side and she very good with guns. Madsen is a good mix with Baldwin and Basinger, he add the funny but villainous third part of the gang. The cast is bigger than normal for an action film but since this was made in the early ‘90's some of the actors hadn't hit it big yet. Jennifer Tilly, Phillip Seymore Hoffman and David Morse round out the cast. They all have small parts but they do the best with what they have. The action is not really original and there are a few Woo slow-motion shots thrown in for good measure. There's only one explosion but a lot of guns. In the end The Getaway is an OK action movie that if it's on TV it would be enjoyable to watch, if there's nothing better on.

The 1994 version of Jim Thompson's novel and Sam Peckinpah's 1972 film is sporadic but good fun; not really knowing what it wants to be by the end but taking us on a bizarre journey of typically unexciting action that branches out into hard boiled, gruff talking neo-noir inspired leads in somebody's debt before becoming a chase film. It then culminates in one, long shootout and makes the ill-judged move to incorporate comedy into its text. Director Roger Donaldson shoots these gunfights near the very end with a certain guilty pleasure-infused ideation; piling on the slow motion and having one of his female leads squealing uncontrollably in a, perhaps deliberately, annoying manner. There is also a set piece involving one gangster stalking his target, who's hiding in a motel room across the courtyard, and what should be a dramatic, tension filled chain of 'looks' and 'reactions' and silhouettes just becomes a somewhat humorous series of shots that just happens to end in someone getting shot.

Donaldson doesn't bring anything particularly constructive to this text bar the, perhaps obligatory, upping of both violence and profanity. But along with this, he tries to make the lead female come across as a more desirable individual than Peckinpah did as well as feeling the need to include more explosions and more set pieces – this version of The Getaway felt more 'stagey', it felt broader but much to its dis-credit; it got confused and began to blur the lines between what makes a film a good neo-noir and what makes a film fall very much into the realm of a bad action flick.

One underlying theme or consistent feeling this remake has is its periodic look at greed, or what people would actually go through for a small, or potentially small, amount of money. At spaced stages throughout this film, a con-artist at a train station will attempt to trick an attractive young woman out of her case prior to knowing what was inside of it; an owner of a motel will turn in an old friend on demand from some strangers for a little bit of money and the catalyst for the entire film to even occur sees a relatively wealthy and established man in Jack Benyon (Woods) charge four men with breaking into an establishment for the sake of some more money.

The film works to a very basic level, primarily thanks to this spaced study but it also finds time to flesh out a character in Fran Carvey (Tilly), as this young and somewhat naive woman that initially just wants to aid in sick animals with her elderly veterinarian husband. This is before Michael Madsen's Rudy Travis shows up, an injured and pretty ticked off gangster-come-thief, that hijacks both the couple and the couple's car as they head out in search of the money. The kidnapping takes place amidst a room of harmless kittens, which acts as interesting of sorts juxtaposition.

The money comes about after three individuals hold-up an area at a race track in which they keep their money. One betrays the other and then someone else betrays them resulting in a chase across America to the Texas-Mexico border. Initially, The Getaway carries a wavered and uneven feel. Rather than begin like the original with its male lead already in prison, it initially sees its lead characters of Carter 'Doc' McCoy (Baldwin) and Carol McCoy (Basinger) partake in an apprehension of a Mexican criminal, which is badly constructed and executed with too much ease on the characters' behalf. Following this, is the imprisonment of Doc when Rudy seemingly does the only thing possible at the time and leaves him behind for the authorities. It plants a somewhat meek seed in our minds that Rudy is of this nature.

When in prison, Doc learns the 'importance of life' and that 'life is very delicate and something to be treasured' through cradling a mouse for part of his duration, in what is another scene in which the film calls on small, defenceless animals to act as a visual representation of either emotions and/or the realisation of a situation. He is called upon to do the race course job with another guy and his old chum, Rudy. Through the mouse, he decides this will be his last. The fact the leads are in debt to the mentioned Jack Benyon keeps a fair degree of suspense for a while as this figure more powerful than the leads calls the shots. But do we really care for or fear Benyon when certain betrayals occur? Not really. His acting as a threatening off screen presence doesn't really work.

One instance in the original that I really liked and thought captured the crux of the situation was a certain scene at a landfill. The two leads were dirty, grimy and somewhat demoralised but realised crime is exactly this and this is their chosen way of life – their enemies will be soldiering on in order to capture them and they must stay focused and rise to the challenge. The Getaway brushes over these sorts of scenes and studies, opting for more emphasis on the slow motion deaths and the police cars and the explosions, typified in the instance someone shoots a petrol tanker in the race course car park forcing an explosion when driving off was all that needed to have been done. But the film does enough right, overall. Tilly's, whilst un-watchably annoying towards the end, decline into a lust for danger and violence as she falls for Rudy and seems unmoved by her husband's fate is genuinely disturbing, and there is some genuine tension here and there when the two leads are on the run. As far as relatively tacky but enjoyable pulp entertainment goes, The Getaway is your ticket out of here.