The Movie:

Remaking a Sam Peckinpah film is a bad idea, but what is an even worse idea is remaking a Sam Peckinpah film with Alec Baldwin in place of Steve McQueen and Kim Basinger in place of Ali MacGraw. That's exactly what happened, however, when in 1994 director Roger Donaldson remade The Getaway.

Doc McCoy (Alec Baldwin) has just spent the last year of his life sweating it out in a Mexican prison. Luckily for him, his foxy wife, Carol (Kim Basinger), convinces a sleazy, big time crime boss named Jack Benyon (James Woods) to let him out early. Before you know it, Doc is once again a free man. There's one condition, however - Doc and Carol have to help two of Benyon's thugs, Rudy and Frank (played by Michael Madsen and Philip Seymour Hoffman), pull off a robbery. Doc's background in explosives might be just the ticket these guys need to pull it off.

Sadly, for all involved, the robbery goes wrong and before you know it Doc and Carol have split in one direction with the loot, the two thugs running in the opposite direction. As they travel around trying to avoid the cops and hide from Rudy, his new girlfriend Fran (Jennifer Tilly) and Frank, Doc starts to wonder if Carol hasn't been as faithful to him as he thought she was while he was on the inside doing time. Suspicions grow, tension mounts, and Benyon and his men keep getting closer...

Roger Donaldson has made some fine films over the span of his career, but sadly The Getaway just isn't one of them. While the film is chock full of sex and violence, unfortunately it lacks any real tension because it's hard to care about the characters. Baldwin handles the role of Doc just fine and Basinger isn't bad as Carol even if she doesn't do much but look good, but we don't like them - in fact, they're jerks and they deserve all the trouble they're in for. When the characters completely bring it on themselves, it's hard to get behind them and root for them and instead we wind up sort of shaking our heads and saying 'I told you so.' More interesting than the one dimensional leads are the supporting characters. While these guys and gals aren't really fleshed out any better, they do benefit from some interesting and inspired performances. James Woods, Michael Madsen and Jennifer Tilly completely chew right through the scenery and look to be having a good time doing. Amazingly, they show no self awareness with their performances and play the material, as ridiculous as some of it is, completely straight. Unfortunately as fun as those three are in the film, we still can't relate to them and as such, we still don't care.

As a big, dumb action movie The Getaway has its moments. There are some decent shoot outs, the odd explosion and a fair bit of style to hide the lack of substance. There's also a generous amount of skin on display, giving the movie more exploitative content than you'd expect to see from a big name Hollywood production. Sadly, Donaldson's pacing is off and on throughout the film, it lacks the consistency needed to give the ultra-violent finale any punch or lasting impact. The dialogue is bad, contrived and cliché ridden, and while a few scenes take advantage of some slick camera work it really just isn't enough. The film feels empty. It's loud, it's sexy, it's violent... and unfortunately it's completely vacant.

Note: The unrated version of The Getaway presented on this DVD differs from the R-rated theatrical cut only in that it reinstates a little bit of skin that was trimmed during the love scene between Basinger and Baldwin in order to earn the film its R-rating for theatrical release.

Video:

The Getaway hits HD-DVD in a surprisingly good anamorphic 2.35.1 1080p VC-1 encoded transfer that is sharp, clean and colorful. The first thing that you'll notice here is the level of detail present in the picture. Both the foreground and the background of the image show of all sorts of minor bits and pieces that would not be as noticeable on a standard definition transfer. This is really noticeable in the indoor scenes such as those that take place inside the hotel where you can see all the dirt and filth on the walls and the furniture. The scenes that take place outside also look really good with the high contrast sunshine giving things a nice sun-baked look that really suits the movie well. Flesh tones look lifelike and natural and there are no major problems with edge enhancement (though you might spot it in a couple of scenes) or mpeg compression artifacts whatsoever. A bit of grain is noticeable in a few spots but it just serves to remind us that at one point this movie was shot on film, so it's not a problem in the least. A couple of scenes look just a tad soft compared to some of the sharper scenes that make up the majority of the picture but odds are pretty good that if you're not looking for these moments then you're not going to notice them. Say what you will about the merits of the movie itself, the transfer on this disc is very good indeed.