ElMaruecan82 I know Sam Peckinpah's "Getaway" is likely to generate calls for boycott or censorship because of the infamous scene where Steve McQueen slaps Ali McGraw not once but several times, even looking for hitting her face with a closed fist, but when you're aware of some backstories, you know the scene works.I was astonished by how severe in a disappointingly shallow way the film was initially reviewed despite its commercial success (second after "The Godfather"). Roger Ebert, who loved "The Wild Bunch" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue", seemed only concerned by the contrivances in the 'heist' and 'shootout' parts. Yet there's more in the film than robbing a bank, escaping with the sound of screeching sound tires and explosive shotguns, there's more than the usual standards of action movies, what the film got was sexual tension, so palpable you could cut through it. "Doc" McCoy is a convict trying to get parole in the midst of a boring and alienating daily routine, improvising scale models in his cell, playing chess or working at a driving license plates' factory. The machinery, pondered by Quincy Jones' jazzy score, gets quickly on our nerves, working as a perfect metaphor of some deep psychological turmoil. Or is it sentimental?While many criminals or antiheroes seem more telegenic as loners or women's men, Doc has a wife, not a girlfriend. This is a true relationship but one that wouldn't survive for too long if McCoy stays in jail. Heasks Carol to to tell Benyon (a Texan big shot with a nasty looking crew played by Ben Johnson) he would accept any offer. In an amusing ellipse, a sexily dressed Carol joins Benyon off-screen and the scene cuts to Doc's release, whatever happened in-between works like a ticking bomb, we know it.The park scene is one of these quiet poetic moments not so rare with not-so-tough Peckinpah (like the picnic in "Alfredo Garcia"). As McCoy watches people sunbathing, swimming, and snuggling, he imagines he and Carol doing the same. Is he mirroring Sam's own perception of a talent wasted for violence? The way imaginary visions overlap with reality shows a real psychological struggle after four years of repressed emotionality... and sensuality, only McQueen could still look cool with a block, only Sam could be sentimental in a macho flick. After the bucolic interlude, we get some awkward conversations, a few confidences and the ice seems broken the following morning when Doc is cooking breakfast. If you think the robbery or the chase will be the next main story, you'll be surprised, the other focus is also a romance albeit more "conventional" by Peckinpah standards.Doc is assigned two partners for a robbery, a disposable one played by a youngish Bo Hopkins and one of the meanest looking mugs of the seventies, Al Lettieri who was born to play the "baddest guy", as good a match for Brando and Pacino in "The Godfather" as a nemesis for McQueen. His character Rudy is wounded after trying to double-cross Doc who was quicker at the draw... he finds a meek and recluse veterinarian named Harold, and in his slutty blonde wife Fran (Sally Struthers) an unexpected object of sensual attraction. In a scene that wasn't played for subtlety, she sensually caresses his gun, telling him he doesn't need to point it at her... not that gun away. The parallels between the couples how and I loved how the beta one had a growing chemistry while at the same moment, Doc is slapping the hell out of Carol after he finds out how he got the ticket for freedom. She makes things worse when she almost loses the loot in the train station after being conned by another "Godfather" alumni. Unlike Richard, she wasn't so "bright" within the circumstances, but she had an attitude.Sam makes us think, a woman like Fran gave her body for nothing, Carol sold her own for her husband's freedom and he's got the nerve to accuse her. Now is he bitter because his wife is a slut or because he couldn't get clean again by soiling the woman he loved the most? The two relationships reach pivotal moments. Harold, the cuckold husband after one humiliation too many, hangs himself much to Fran and Rudy's indifference. Later, Doc and Carol finally reestablish their relationship. They decide to move forward and leave the past behind or where it belongs, in the most adequate place, a garbage dump. So we have a "good couple / bad couple" situation, but both on the wrong side from the law and the closest thing to a moral scope is marriage. The climactic shootout is another instance where the maverick director proved his mastery of the action but after "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs", there's not much new stuff to praise, though I enjoyed the cameo of Dub Taylor, that hilarious punch Struthers got for not keeping her mouth shut. As sad as it was, I guess Rudy's death was the perfect revenge of Karma for what Fran did to her husband. Karma-wise, it's also appropriate that the last helping hand comes from an old-fashioned cowboy played by Slim Pickens (another great cameo) who rants about the lack of morality and marital commitment while describing his wife as a pillar in his life, he gets a great retribution.But I wasn't glad that the good couple could get away it with the money, but because they did it together, but maybe Ali McGraw should have learned a lesson from the film. She treated producers Robert Evans like Fran with Harold, she couldn't resist McQueen who revealed himself to be quite a "Rudy" with her.... and her career was derailed like Fran's life.That fact of life made the sexual tension believable because the actors didn't play it, but it's crazy how truth can be stranger than fiction, bitchier too.

suryabali The Getaway 1972 is one of my favourite movies. The director Sam Peckinpah is at the best. Perfect action, acting, story, direction, cinematography, script, screenplay makes it watchable again and again and again..............I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this to any Human being around the world. 10/10 full points.THE GETAWAY (1972) Director: Sam Peckinpah Starring: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw

Jon Corelis The Getaway (1972) more than fulfills the expectations we bring to a Sam Peckinpah film, being tough, suspenseful, gritty, and unsentimental, with a nod to Peckinpah's personal mythology of Mexico as the mythic country where the rules are different -- the protagonists don't actually get there, but it is the destination of their whole violent odyssey. Steve McQueen, at his iciest, and Ali MacGraw are a Bonnie-and-Clyde style bank robbing couple who pull a big heist which, of course, goes horribly wrong: in the aftermath they have to dodge both their double- and -triple-crossing partners and the police to escape the country with their loot. The film has a number of stunning sequences -- the scenes where the couple hide in a dumpster and end up being slid into landfill is a classic -- and suspense is kept up throughout. The film's main defect is Ali MacGraw's lackluster performance -- she's at her most effective when she just stands there and lets the photography present her as a warm-blooded sexual foil to McQueen's cold-bloodedness. (Incidentally, McQueen and MacGraw were married after meeting doing this film.) A more memorable performance is given by Sally Struthers as a 180-degree opposite of the wholesome girl next door that is her usual public image.Advisory: if you know Peckinpah films, you know this will be replete with sex and, especially, violence.I saw this the 2005 Warner Home Video standard DVD; which was of good quality. There is now also a Blu-Ray, which I suppose would be better.

jarrodmcdonald-1 How can it get any better than Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in an anti-establishment fable directed by Sam Peckinpah? What makes the film so excellent, in addition to its well-crafted, well-directed and mostly well-acted story, is the use of location filming, tense chase scenes that give us action-action- action...and a smattering of supporting players (many having found greater fame on television by the time they were cast in these roles) that give the story flavor, energy and colorful characterization. Among these folks, I want to mention Jack Dodson as a hostage forced to drive; Dub Taylor as a seedy motel manager; Slim Pickens as a cowboy; and of course, Sally Struthers as Fran, a wannabe Bonnie Parker whose heart inevitably gets broken on the run. Struthers should have had a supporting actress nomination, because she is that good. Do not miss the rib-throwing scene about two-thirds of the way through the movie. It's classic.As for the leads, I understand they fell in love during the making of this picture and divorced their respective spouses to marry each other. To say they share a special chemistry is underestimating the laws of physical attraction. I expected MacGraw to be a bit of a pushover, but she is given some powerful moments where her character explodes and gets exploded at. She is deceptively calm and then when she faces a crisis, we are wondering how she will react, and if she will ever fully self-destruct. McQueen is perfectly cool, and there is a great scene where the runaway couple emerges from a pile of trash that has been dumped along a gulch in a remote waste site. In this scene, we see him stand up, grab the bag of money and his rifle, then move off with MacGraw as only he can. Nothing rumples him. In fact, nothing rumples this movie. It's as crisp as a new twenty-dollar bill.