Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

secondtake The Getaway (1972)A striking, very characteristic period piece that owes something (a lot) to "Bonnie and Clyde" from five years earlier. Steve McQueen is strong, in his silently brooding, intense way. And he rules the movie. His counterpart (his wife, actually), is played by Ali MacGraw (of "Love Story" fame) who is predictably a bit drab, though she fits the mold of the times.So who makes the movie even slightly great? The photographer and editor, and therefore the director, Sam Pickinpaw, who had risen up with "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs," both better films than this one. The combination of natural, smart visuals (thanks to Lucian Ballard) and amazingly back and forth editing that would make Christopher Nolan proud (thanks to Robert Wolfe, who would go on to do a number of interesting films), the movie has punch and fresh energy.The plot is fairly straight up—Doc McCoy gets out of jail thanks to a "favor" by his wife with a crime king. The debt is paid with more crime, and so the movie follows the new heist. Parallel to this is the reunification of McCoy with his wife. And she is involved in the new job, so the interweaving continues.So in a way, the plot does its job keeping the other elements in place. The movie is fast, and has a lot of changes and interesting aspects. The settings are great—Texas in the early 1970s— and the feeling of small crime in the big world makes a great backdrop. McQueen is smart and wily, and a lot of the small parts are strong, especially Slim Pickens at the end.It also sums up the attempts in New Hollywood to be shocking and new. Worth seeing.

Gideon24 The Getaway is the 1972 box office smash that featured legendary director Sam Peckinpah at his stylish best and capitalized on the off- the-charts chemistry between Steve McQueen and his new bride at the time, Ali MacGraw.McQueen plays Doc McCoy, a recently released-from-jail career criminal who is coerced into a bank robbery by the crooked warden (Ben Johnson), aided by his wife, Carol (Ali MacGraw) and his old crew. When things go wrong at the robbery, including the death of one of Doc's men (Bo Hopkins) and when another crew member (Al Lettieri) turns on the McCoys, it forces the couple on the run.Peckinpah's nearly flawless eye for cinematic violence is one of the things that makes this film so completely watchable. Watch the scene where McQueen levels a police car with a shot gun...Peckinpah once again makes the art of cinematic violence look almost musical...like a slow- motion ballet. Very few directors have accomplished as much over the years with the art of slow motion as Sam Peckinpah. Mention should also be made of a hair-raising scene that takes place on a garbage truck that the McCoys are forced to hide in.Despite MacGraw's limited acting skills, there is no denying the white hot chemistry she had with the late McQueen. Ben Johnson is appropriately slimy as the warden and Al Lettieri is bone-chilling and works well with Sally Struthers, who plays the innocent housewife who becomes his hostage.The film was remade in 1994 with Alex Baldwin and Kim Basinger, but as I usually say in reviews like this one, stick with the original. An instant classic that has great re-watch appeal, even almost fifty years after its original release.

funkyfry As this film ably demonstrates, literally and symbolically, if you aim a shotgun at a big enough target, you're gonna hit something. This film takes a lot of the more controversial and distasteful aspects of "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs" and presents them devoid of all philosophical content. It's a triumph of style over substance. I get it -- in 1972, McQueen and Peckinpah were both in need of a box-office hit. So they got Ali McGraw, who can't act to save her life but manages to get halfway there in this film, and off they go on a crime spree. Author David Weddle noted in his book on Peckinpah that the director made off with about $500,000 at the end of the day -- the same amount McQueen and McGraw's characters made from the heist. Fitting.It's not a "bad" movie.... the performances are underwhelming, pretty much all around (Ben Johnson disappears too quickly to make much more than an impression), but the action scenes are compelling and the suspense is strong. The story does not make a lot of sense.... for example, Johnson's character is sitting there in the house with all that loot just waiting for McQueen, under the assumption that McQueen's wife is going to betray him. This powerful, cynical man had no back- up plan whatsoever? Time and again, Peckinpah puts pedal to the metal and blasts right through story and character logic, but we don't mind too much.It's sort of a high-class drive-in movie.... not quite as much mayhem as "Gone in 60 Seconds", but close. McQueen and McGraw are a super sexy couple, and there's an amusing (although sadistic) side story with Sally Struthers and the suitably disgusting Al Lettieri. It's the sort of film Jack Hill would make if he had a bit more money; the stuff that Tarantino fans' dreams are made of.

SnoopyStyle Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) is released on parole. His wife Carol (Ali MacGraw) is dutifully waiting for him. Sheriff Beynon (Ben Johnson) got him out in exchange for Doc to do a bank job worth at least $500k. Beynon assigns him Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri) and Frank Jackson as his crew. The bank job goes wrong. Frank kills a guard. Rudy shoots Frank. Rudy tries to shoot Doc but Doc beats him to the draw. Rudy wearing a bullet-proof vest survives. Benyon also tries to doublecross Doc with Carol's help but Carol shoots Benyon instead. Carol slept with Benyon trying to get Doc out of prison. Meanwhile Rudy kidnaps a couple (Jack Dodson, Sally Struthers).Director Sam Peckinpah gets to do a lot of action with a simple thin plot. The characters aren't that deep. The couple has a good turn in the story. The tension is surprisingly not that high. It's an action road film that needs more excitement. While the action is good, the movie is very slow a lot of the times. It really only has Peckinpah's action going for it and he's using too much slow motion action. While Rudy's story is a bit different, I'm not really invested in him or his captives. Also I would have made Doc a harder man. Carol is right. He's not hard enough. However the movie has got good Peckinpah action but not much else.