Friday 16 January 2009

The Getaway (1972)

[Movie 30 / Day 16]


The Getaway is an 18-rated heist movie, featuring a husband and wife team of bank robbers trying to make good their escape across America as they're chased by various double-crossing n'er do wells and are hunted by the police. Again, I'm not sure why this is rated 18 as there is almost no bad language and the violence is fairly minimal - the blood effects look MUCH more like red paint than blood. Perhaps it's time the BBFC reviewed some of the ratings on movies over 25 years old.

It's a decent enough movie, starring Steve McQueen, who was surely one of the three coolest men ever to walk this planet. He exudes awesome. His wife is played by Ali MacGraw, who is decent enough and pretty easy on the eye.

The most annoying thing about the whole film is the soundtrack - it's like some sort of Fast Show 'Jazz Club' sketch at times ("Mmm, nice") and has a habit of carrying sound over in cut scenes which is really distracted me in places. I wish I'd realised the HD-DVD carries an alternate score by Jerry Fielding, because I watched one of the extras, the bank robbery sequence with the alternate score, dialogue and effects and I found it much more atmospheric. More run-of-the-mill, sure; but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If I'd known, I would have definitely watched it with it switched on.

My rating: 7.1 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.5 / 10
Running time: 122 mins
IMDB link

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