King of cool Steve McQueen teams with "Bloody Sam" Peckinpah for this thoroughly engaging story of a couple on the lam following a botched robbery.
Walter Hill adapts the novel by Jim Thompson in this story of Carter "Doc" McCoy (McQueen),a criminal currently doing time. His wife Carol (Ali MacGraw) manages to secure his release by playing up to crooked parole board chief Jack Beynon (Ben Johnson); Doc and Carol are then made to participate in a bank robbery which goes as wrong as movie lovers everywhere could expect it to. Doc and Carol have to make their way across Texas to Mexico and safety while being trailed by Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri),a vengeance minded member of the gang.
The cast simply couldn't be better in this sexy, slick, violent production; even MacGraw isn't bad as the wife with a loyalty to her man through thick and thin. McQueen once again has an undeniable presence on screen and the viewer can believe that he's going to keep going despite the odds. Johnson is enjoyably slimy, Lettieri scores as a truly rotten creep, and Richard Bright, Jack Dodson, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins, and Roy Jenson all do well in assorted memorable bits. The ever affable Slim Pickens doesn't appear until near the end of the picture, but he helps to close it on a very ingratiating final note.
Peckinpah is in very fine form here, creating a milieu where moral considerations often go out the window. Doc isn't necessarily a "good guy", yet we still can't help but root for him, especially when characters like Beynon and Butler are even worse. Just to give people an idea of how sleazy Butler is, he thinks nothing of dallying with vapid, sexpot blonde Fran (Sally Struthers) in front of her weakling husband Harold (Dodson). The many vignettes along the way keep you eagerly watching - Doc is forced to pursue another thief (Bright) to get his own ill gotten money back, for one - but the highlight is undeniably the incredibly tense sequence aboard the garbage truck. Peckinpah once again demonstrates a real flair for the kind of stylized violence he perfected in "The Wild Bunch", with blood spurting and many squibs exploding.
People can hardly fail to notice that again the director is not about to go the politically correct route, as a resentful Doc, still not happy about what Carol did with Beynon, slaps her around. Yet, when Doc punches Frans' lights out later, it actually provokes a reaction of relief from the audience because it puts an end to her shrill whining.
Overall the film makes for fine entertainment. Even at two hours and three minutes, it's remarkably well paced and tension filled, and it never falters, kicking into gear for a rousing final act. Highly recommended.
10 out of 10.
The Getaway
1972
Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller
The Getaway
1972
Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller
Plot summary
Carter "Doc" McCoy is a career robber, currently in his fourth year of a 10-year prison sentence at the Texas State Penitentiary. After his request for parole is denied although he's a model prisoner, Doc, unable emotionally to endure life inside, asks his loving wife Carol McCoy to contact crooked businessman Jack Beynon, a man with political connections, to secure his release in return for being "for sale" to Beynon. Beynon is able to get Doc released, the sale price being for Doc to plan and execute a robbery at a small bank branch in Beacon City, Texas where Beynon knows that $750,000 will be kept in the vault for the next two weeks. Rather than Doc using his own men for the job, Beynon directs that the only other people involved will be the men of his own choosing, Rudy and Frank. There are to be no casualties, which is all right with Doc who is not a murderer. After the robbery is completed and the monies divvied up accordingly, Doc and Carol will cross the border into Mexico to live out their lives away from capture. The robbery doesn't go according to Doc's plan, and Doc and Carol go on the run making their way into Mexico with their share of the loot. Various people are in their pursuit, some who know that they will try to cross into Mexico at one of the two major West Texas border crossings. Other bystanders get directly or indirectly involved in the proceedings; two of those people, seeming straight-laced couple Fran and Harold Clinton, get much more intimately involved than the others. Though it all, Doc and Carol must work through some of their own issues, which arise out of a revelation about Doc's release from prison.
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Absolutely great heist-gone-wrong classic.
thin story with Peckinpah action
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.
Bloody, exciting, and amazing on all accounts
Steve McQueen, the number one bad ass of his time (aside from Clint Eastwood of course). So what's wrong with rooting for the bad guy? This movie seems almost flawless with its excellently executed car chases, it's suspenseful and exciting shoot-outs, and its riveting emotional sequences. Both McGraw and McQueen make this movie well worth the experience. While it is a violent movie (especially for the year it was released!) its moments of comic relief and even serenity make this movie worthy of any moral person's eyes.
Without spoiling the movie, just imagine Bonnie and Clyde with the greatest action/adventure experience ever. And to think it was over a measley $500,000... Of course, they were being chased for $750,000.
9/10 for an adventure close to perfection.