David Twohy doesn’t reinvent the wheel with A Perfect Getaway, the key to both the
film’s minor successes and shortcomings. Interested in straightforward B-movie
suspense laced with a dash of wink-wink self-awareness, Twohy’s film concerns a
vacationing couple in Kauai – screenwriter Cliff (Steve Zahn) and new bride
Cydney (Milla Jovovich) – who, while backpacking in the mountains, hear that a
pair of newlywed murderers are loose on the island. Wouldn’t you know it, they then
immediately find themselves faced with two sets of suspects: a menacing pair
(Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton) angry over being denied a hitchhiking
ride, and a super hunting/camping twosome (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez)
who seem a bit too handy with a knife. Twohy lets his story’s central guessing
game play out with patient tautness, and his cast’s performances – whether
directly addressing the issue of “red herrings” and “second-act plot twists,”
as Olyphant does, or merely exuding a playful “how dangerous am I?” ambiguity –
keep the mystery lively. It’s too bad that Twohy telegraphs his climactic
surprise from the opening-credits prologue, yet his otherwise capable
misdirections are sturdy enough to cast minor doubt on the final outcome, just
as his generally clean, gimmick-free direction keeps the action lean and swift.
A third-act filled with too much flash and sizzle, as well as dull flashback
exposition, mucks up the preceding tense atmosphere, but as far as modest genre
exercises go, A Perfect Getaway
nonetheless gets enough right.
I thought it was a good movie to watch and your mind going the whole time.
Posted by: Movieporch | March 16, 2010 at 10:40 PM