ACTION/ADVENTURE, SUSPENSE/THRILLER
Constant Chase
6.5 out of 10 | Rental
Rated: PG-13 Intense action, violence and mayhem throughout, some rude gestures and language
Release Date: August 30, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
Release Date: August 30, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
Director: Courtney Solomon
Writers: Sean Finegan, Gregg Maxwell Parker
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight
Writers: Sean Finegan, Gregg Maxwell Parker
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight
SYNOPSIS: Former race-car driver Brent Magna is pitted against the clock when his wife is kidnapped by a mysterious villain. He commanders a young woman's car and takes her on on a high-speed race against time.
REVIEW: Courtney Solomon is a third time director (An American Haunting, Dungeons & Dragons) who now looks to tackle a different type of monster - A Ford Mustang GT500 Shelby Super Snake! Written jointly by newcomers Sean Finegan and Gregg Maxwell Parker, try to pack a lot of horsepower into the span of 90 minutes.
Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke, Sinister) was a gifted race car driver who ended up believing all the hype about himself. After a crash he leaves the sports. When his wife is abducted from their home in Sofia, Bulgaria, Magna receives a phone call ordering him to steal a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Super Snake from a parking garage and await further instructions or his wife will be killed. As he obeys the orders from the Voice (Jon Voight) in the dash, he endangers his life, the lives of pedestrians, and cause untold property damage and injury to the local police force. When a young woman (Selena Gomez, Hotel Transylvania) tries to take the car by gunpoint, she is overpowered and taken along for the ride to be part of the Voice's master plan. Magna must follow all instructions to a tee in order to have a slim possibility of being reunited with his wife. As Magna and 'The Kid' try to outrun the authorities and try to figure out the voice's plan, they stumbled upon important information and maybe a bargaining chip to help get Magna's wife back.
Take all the car chase movies you are familiar with – Bullitt, The Fast and the Furious, Smokey and the Bandit, and countless others – and roll them all into this 90 minutes of high octane pursuit. Throw in a bodiless menace with the upper hand, a la Colin Farrell's Phone Booth, and you have the outline of a film with miles of possibilities. After the first extended chase scene, many may have been on the edge of their seats or gripping the armrest with white knuckles. But as the movie revs on the chase sequences get repetitive and less interesting. There are only so many police cruiser car flips and cars ramping down stairs steps keep a person riveted. The mastermind voice keeps us curious as we try to unravel out what his scheme really is. But it doesn't have intricacy and planning to be as perfectly timed a plan that it could have been.
Ethan Hawke plays his down and out race car driver Brent rid of any acclaim through an accident, and left leading a unsavory life to make ends meet based on his skill set. The only thing that he finds redemptive is his wife who he adores above all each. That makes him easy prey for manipulation. On the other side of the coin is Selena Gomez's 'The Kid' who is a daddy's little rich girl throwaway who is educated at all the best schools, given material things instead of parental love, and just happened to be a genius with cars and computer hacking. All that seems random is connected as per the Voice's plan. Ethan Hawke can play this role to sleep, and it seems like he may have. Selena Gomez has yet to grow into an adult actresses, but her role as 'The Kid' doesn't put too much demand on her available talent.
Aside from the Voice behind the master plan and under the dash, the biggest character in the film is the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Super Snake itself. Lovers of muscle cars will be saddened to see the wear and tear that this Detroit Steel has to endure. It is a beautiful iconic thoroughbred that, in this film, is ridden hard and put away wet.
The director and cinematographer do give us a couple choice sequences that leads to gasps and some applause. Since the film is 90% car chase, it is difficult to come down to a lull from the intensity of any of the sequences. Two notable shots include a water runoff basin where one of the police cars slams into a pillar, lands in the water, and starts floating away, and when the Mustang is in pursuit of a vehicle and we see the chase in first person through the Mustangs headlamps. This last sequences that makes you feel like you are part of the film.
Getaway is the film to go see if you want to enjoy buttery popcorn bucket in a darkened theater, but the film strips the gears of cinematic car chases and intricate storytelling and puts this flick into neutral to most likely stall.
Take all the car chase movies you are familiar with – Bullitt, The Fast and the Furious, Smokey and the Bandit, and countless others – and roll them all into this 90 minutes of high octane pursuit. Throw in a bodiless menace with the upper hand, a la Colin Farrell's Phone Booth, and you have the outline of a film with miles of possibilities. After the first extended chase scene, many may have been on the edge of their seats or gripping the armrest with white knuckles. But as the movie revs on the chase sequences get repetitive and less interesting. There are only so many police cruiser car flips and cars ramping down stairs steps keep a person riveted. The mastermind voice keeps us curious as we try to unravel out what his scheme really is. But it doesn't have intricacy and planning to be as perfectly timed a plan that it could have been.
Ethan Hawke plays his down and out race car driver Brent rid of any acclaim through an accident, and left leading a unsavory life to make ends meet based on his skill set. The only thing that he finds redemptive is his wife who he adores above all each. That makes him easy prey for manipulation. On the other side of the coin is Selena Gomez's 'The Kid' who is a daddy's little rich girl throwaway who is educated at all the best schools, given material things instead of parental love, and just happened to be a genius with cars and computer hacking. All that seems random is connected as per the Voice's plan. Ethan Hawke can play this role to sleep, and it seems like he may have. Selena Gomez has yet to grow into an adult actresses, but her role as 'The Kid' doesn't put too much demand on her available talent.
Aside from the Voice behind the master plan and under the dash, the biggest character in the film is the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Super Snake itself. Lovers of muscle cars will be saddened to see the wear and tear that this Detroit Steel has to endure. It is a beautiful iconic thoroughbred that, in this film, is ridden hard and put away wet.
The director and cinematographer do give us a couple choice sequences that leads to gasps and some applause. Since the film is 90% car chase, it is difficult to come down to a lull from the intensity of any of the sequences. Two notable shots include a water runoff basin where one of the police cars slams into a pillar, lands in the water, and starts floating away, and when the Mustang is in pursuit of a vehicle and we see the chase in first person through the Mustangs headlamps. This last sequences that makes you feel like you are part of the film.
Getaway is the film to go see if you want to enjoy buttery popcorn bucket in a darkened theater, but the film strips the gears of cinematic car chases and intricate storytelling and puts this flick into neutral to most likely stall.
