The Getaway
Before you rush out to catch Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger play robbers in this caper flick, rent the 1972 original with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. It was directed by the late, great Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch). The video reminds us that Bloody Sam was not then in peak form. The film is mostly remembered for uniting McQueen with the pretty, groaningly untalented MacGraw, who divorced her husband, producer Robert Evans, to marry him.
It’s doubtful anyone will remember this slick, pointless remake starring the already married Baldwin and Basinger. Director Roger Donaldson (No Way Out) hews closely to the original film. Crooked Doc McCoy (Baldwin) enlists his crooked wife, Carol (Basinger), to get him out of a Mexican jail by telling crooked Jack Benyon (a smarmy James Woods) that they’ll pull a heist for him at a dog track. Carol has to sleep with the creep to seal the deal, which makes Doc feel violated.
After the robbery, the double crosses pile up with the bodies. Doc’s accomplice Rudy (a niftily nasty Michael Madsen) aims to meet up with the McCoys in El Paso, Texas, and waste them. Along the way, Rudy kidnaps a vet and his bimbo wife (Jennifer Tilly). For sport, he ties up hubby and screws his wife in front of him. He’s that kind of a guy. Throughout the gunfire and chases across hill, dale and garbage dump, Baldwin and Basinger remain glam and fashion-layout fresh. The Getaway is that kind of a movie.