[one-star-rating]Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight[/one-star-rating]
“Getaway!” – that should be the only advertisement this craptastic car-chase flick needs.
I have said before that I’m befuddled how the Hollywood money system works. This looks like a failure all over – from the script to the casting to the directing. The only logical reason to pour capital into such an endeavor is to claim a giant tax write-off. Yet, it got made. Tell me, if you were a movie executive, would you have given it the green light?
Hawke plays Brent Magra (even that name makes me wince), a former NASCAR superstar. Retired to Eastern Europe and trying to save his marriage, Hawke gets a call from Jon Voight (named The Voice), who’s kidnapped the driver’s wife. To get her back, Hawke has to race a gorgeous Shelby Mustang through the shopper-clogged streets of Sofia, Bulgaria, at Christmas. There is some sort of mysterious obstacle course that The Voice (Voight does a terrible German accent) forces Hawke through for money, but why Voight needs more money when he has enough to set up this ridiculous scheme is beyond my comprehension. Then a “bad-ass” Selena Gomez shows up to steal the Mustang back at gunpoint (because the car is hers, and apparently using a gun is the only way to get it back). Then she decides to help Hawke.
This is 90 minutes, but it feels unending.
Hawke’s talents are wasted. After the glorious summer drama Before Midnight, this just makes me hate him. All he has to do is grit his teeth and squint.
Disney brat Gomez is still trying to become an adult star (after her interesting turn in Spring Breakers earlier this year). However, this film is stupid, and there’s no way her limited acting talent is going to make it any better. How did they get Hawke to agree to be in a film with her? Gomez repeatedly calls everyone “assholes;” I believe she’s secretly referring to her agent, the movie producers and the scriptwriter.
[rating-key]
Let me mention the one thing about this that could’ve made it worth it; all car stunts – and there are a lot – are live, without computer effects. However, this epic mayhem and destruction is at the whim of The Voice, whose directions include crashing into things and presumably killing several Christmas shoppers so that Hawke can reclaim his wife and continue to patch up his marriage – on the blood of innocents. Also, how Gomez lost her car in the first place so that The Voice could take it over and soup it up with surveillance equipment is never explained. It’s the dumbest, noisiest set-up to send a beautiful car through stunt after stunt, destroying property, wrecking other vehicles, injuring, maiming, and killing.
Oh, and then Getaway ends in a way that makes room for a sequel, which I hope will be called Stayaway.
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