Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 12, 1994 TAG: 9402120071
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
While the 1972 film wasn't director Sam Peckinpah's best, it's still a solid little thriller that has aged well. Beyond one fast-moving chase sequence in the middle, this version does nothing to improve on the original. It does turn into comedy, sometimes intentionally, but that's hardly a recommendation.
Curiously, it takes the film about 15 minutes to reach the point where the first one began. That's when Doc McCoy (Alec Baldwin) gets out of jail. His wife, Carol (Kim Basinger), has cut a deal with a rich guy named Benyon (James Woods). In return for his freedom, Doc has to knock over a race track with the help of two dim-witted thugs, Rudy (Michael Madsen) and Hansen (Philip Hoffman).
Anyone who's at all familiar with the 1972 film knows exactly what's going to happen. Walter Hill, who also wrote the original, didn't change much this time around. The things that are different tend to provoke giggles. Take Michael Madsen's hairdo, for example. He wears long red tresses that make him a dead ringer for John Lithgow as the transsexual in "The World According to Garp." Once you've fixed on that image, it's impossible to take him seriously, no matter how menacing he acts.
The on-screen chemistry between real-life married couple Baldwin and Basinger never generates any real heat. That's to be expected. These two are much too cool and smooth to play crime novelist Jim Thompson's edgy, off-center characters. They hardly look mussed in the famous scene when they fall out of the dumpster. The love scenes are tastefully restrained, too. Nothing here matches the intensity that director Roger Donaldson created in the backseat of the limo in "No Way Out."
But then, that just shows how important originality and the right casting are to movies.
The Getaway: **
A Universal release playing at the Salem Valley and Tanglewood Mall Theatre. 115 min. Rated R for graphic violence, strong language, sexual content, brief nudity.
by CNB