The Getaway

The Getaway is a 1994 film starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. Carter “Doc” McCoy (Baldwin) and his wife, Carol (Basinger) are criminals for hire. One of their associates, Rudy, tells them of a Mexican drug lord who wants his nephew out of jail and that he is willing to pay $300,000 for a job well done. Doc McCoy successfully breaks the drug lord’s nephew out of prison and exchanges him for the cash when the cops show up, prompting Rudy to take off in the getaway vehicle to avoid being caught. Doc is arrested, and after spending a year in a Mexican prison, sends his wife to a business man named Jack Benyon who is looking to hire a team of expert criminals to burglar a dog track. Jack agrees to spring Doc from the Mexican jail on the condition that he join the team for the dog track heist. Doc is broken out of jail by Jack and his men, and they proceed to lay out plans for the heist. When the heist is being performed, however, one of the guards is killed in a panic, and Rudy (who is part of Benyon’s team) kills several of his teammates in an attempt to garner more of the profits for himself. Doc and Rudy square off and Rudy is wounded. Doc’s wife Carol kills Jack Benyon after learning of Jack’s plot to kill her husband and the rest of the team to take all of the money for himself. Doc and Carol take the money for themselves and make for the U.S. Mexico border, only to be confronted by Rudy once again. Doc and Rudy square off, and Rudy is killed. Doc and Carol make it to the border, buy a pick-up truck, and drive off with their profit.

The crime-thriller genre was big business in the 1990’s, and “The Getaway” provides twists and turns in the vein of a poor mans “Point Break” as it navigates through genre cliché after genre cliché. The performances given by Alec Baldwin as Doc McCoy and Kim Basinger as his wife Carol were both uninspired, and beneath the station of actors of this caliber. What passes for a plot twist in this film is attempted not once, not twice, but three times, as the characters we think may be friends to the McCoy’s (Rudy Travis, Jack Benyon) turn out to the snide, conniving criminals we think they are. The casting decisions for these two roles could and should have been handled by actors who exhibited more than one dimension on their emotional spectrums, but we are instead treated to “D” grade performances from both Michael Madsen and James Woods. Madsen, who has had such incredible roles as Mr. Blonde in Quentin Terentino’s Reservoir Dogs, is as bland as unsweetened oatmeal in his turn as Rudy Travis and James Woods gives one of the lackluster performances of his career as the “mastermind” Jack Benyon. The editing and cinematography are done well in this movie, but the fast edits coupled with a relatively nonsensical plot seem to leave the viewer in utter confusion and disarray as important scenes that should be setting the tone for the scenes to follow fall flat, or flit by in the blink of an eye. One of the more emotionally wrenching scenes in the movie is the relationship between Rudy and Fran, who he holds hostage with her veterinarian husband Harold. An attraction develops between the two, and Harold is tied to a chair while Rudy copulates with his wife. Harold later commits suicide during this act. Better actors, better shots and an appropriate musical score might have made this the emotional low point of the movie, but the sights and sounds found in The Getaway during this scene are almost comical. Overall, “The Getaway” is a mildly entertaining crime-thriller that serves to transport the viewer away from their own lives for roughly 100 minutes. Unfortunately, not everyone may enjoy the ride, least of all this author. The second word in the title says it all.

Bibliography

The Getaway. VHS. Directed by Roger Donaldson. Universal City, CA: Universal Home Video, 1994.