The Getaway (1994 film)

The Getaway

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Roger Donaldson
Produced by David Foster
John Alan Simon
Lawrence Turman
Screenplay by Walter Hill
Amy Holden Jones
Based on The Getaway 
by Jim Thompson
Starring Alec Baldwin
Kim Basinger
Michael Madsen
James Woods
Jennifer Tilly
Music by Mark Isham
Cinematography Peter Menzies Jr.
Edited by Conrad Buff
Production
company
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • February 11, 1994 (1994-02-11)
Running time
 115 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $30 million[1]

The Getaway is a 1994 action thriller film directed by Roger Donaldson. It is based on the Jim Thompson novel of the same name and is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name. The film stars Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, with Michael Madsen, James Woods, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Jennifer Tilly in supporting roles.

Plot

Carter "Doc" McCoy and his wife Carol are taking target practice with pistols when Rudy arrives to propose they break a Mexican drug lord's nephew out of jail for a $300,000 payment. The job is successful, but it turns out the drug lord wanted his nephew free to kill him.

Rudy is waiting with a getaway plane, but he sees police cars and leaves Doc behind. After a year in a Mexican jail, Doc sends Carol to mob boss Jack Benyon, who is looking to put together a select team of experts to rob a dog track in Arizona. Benyon agrees to get Doc released from prison, in exchange for sexual favors from Carol first.

Doc gets out and meets the men Benyon has hired. One is Rudy, along with Hansen, who seemsinexperienced. Rudy extends a hand and says "No hard feelings" but is punched by Doc and warned not to double-cross him again.

At the track, while Doc is breaking into the vault, a guard pulls a gun and is shot by Hansen in a panic. The thieves escape by creating a diversion with a bomb under a gas truck and leave with the cash. The plan was for Doc and Carol to meet Rudy and Hansen later to split the money. On the road, Rudy kills Hansen and pushes him out of the car.

Doc arrives at the rendezvous point, where Rudy again pulls a gun. Doc expected this and is ready with his own weapon, shooting Rudy and leaving him for dead. Doc and Carol drive off with all the money, unaware that Rudy was wearing a bullet-proof vest.

A wounded Rudy drives to a local clinic, where he holds veterinarian Harold and his wife Fran hostage, forces them to treat his wounds and drive him to El Paso. An attraction develops between Rudy and Fran and they taunt her meek husband. At a motel, Rudy has sex with Fran after tying Harold to a chair. Hearing his wife's moans and her laughter at him, a heart-broken Harold commits suicide by hanging himself. Fran barely looks back as she accompanies Rudy to El Paso.

Doc and Carol go to Benyon's house with the money. Benyon drops broad hints about what Carol did to get Doc out of jail. Carol approaches with a gun, unseen by Doc as he counts the money. Benyon clearly expects her to shoot Doc, but she kills him instead.

Doc is upset, but Carol says she did she had to do to help Doc and assumes he'd do the same if their situations were reversed. There continues to be tension between the pair, particularly when Carol loses the money to a con man at a train station in Flagstaff. Doc has to board the train, find the man and subdue him to retrieve the money.

They proceed to the rustic Border Hotel in El Paso, owned by Doc's friend Gollie, to get new passports and identities so they can escape to Mexico. Rudy is already there waiting with Fran. Benyon's men, led by Jim Deer want the money and arrive in El Paso.

Rudy sets a trap and Doc is startled to see him alive. He knocks out Rudy but resists killing him in cold blood. A long and bloody gunfight ensues with Doc and Carol shooting it out with Benyon's men in the halls and stairwells of the hotel.

Rudy comes to his senses just as the last of Benyon's men die. He makes one more attempt to get the money and after a hand to hand fight is killed by Doc in an elevator when Doc shoots the cables, sending the elevator plummeting down to ground level and crashing it,. Doc and Carol hijack a pickup truck driven by Slim, an old cowboy, and drive to the border of Mexico. They buy the cowboy's truck and make their getaway.

Cast

Production

Locations in the script include Phoenix, Prescott and Flagstaff, Arizona, New Mexico, and border town El Paso, Texas. Standing in for these communities, the film was actually shot in Arizona, Yuma, Phoenix, and The Apache Lodge in Prescott, Arizona. An exterior, establishing shot for one scene is believed to have been filmed in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, Mexico. The location portrayed as the Border Hotel in El Paso is the Hotel Del Sol (formerly Hotel Del Ming) in Yuma, Arizona. It was filmed in the spring of 1993 and was originally set to be released in December of that year.[2]

Reception

The film garnered negative reviews from critics and has a rating of 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.[3] It earned a Razzie Award and a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards nomination for Kim Basinger as Worst Actress, but she lost both trophies to Sharon Stone for Intersection and The Specialist.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "The Getaway (1994) (1994)". Box Office Mojo. 1994-03-15. Retrieved 2013-05-10.
  2. ↑ Actress Kim Basinger Trying To Break The Bank With Three New Movies
  3. ↑ "The Getaway". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2013-05-10.
  4. ↑ "1994 17th Hastings Bad Cinema Society Stinkers Awards". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2006-10-17. Retrieved May 10, 2013.

External links

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