High Camp

starring Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin

directed by Roger Donaldson

playing at local theaters

The "Getaway" is an action-packed remake of an earlier film that starred Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. Although the newer version is generally predictable and wrought with clinches, some of the exaggerated character and unlikely premises make for two hours of high camp.

The film stars Alec Baldwin as Doc McCoy, a seasoned hitman, and Kim Basinger as wife and partner-in-crime, Carol. We meet the duo coolly clad with dark shades, shooting targets in the desert, cavalierly zipping away in their white convertible to take on a new contract. The job is the get a convict out of prison and fly him back to Mexico. Doc is betrayed by Rudy (Michael Madsen), who leaves him stranded after the police are called on to the scene. Carol seeks the help of Benyon (James Woods),and offers Doc's services in return for his freedom. Benyon agrees, although Carol must perform a little service of her own.

Herein the "Getaway"-speak of all the characters is laid out: cash and sex. After Doc robs a dog-racing vault for Benyon, he hops into a nervous Carol's car. She looks concerned, asks him if he is alright, looks at the bag with 2 million dollars and is immediately reassured, "I guess so! she gleefully exclaims.

The acting in the "Getaway" is not merely mediocre--it's just plain bad. This is probably because the script is so overwrought with cliches that the criminals are laughable. Benyon's badguy persona is so unconvincing that every once in a while I expected Benyon to fall out of character, turn to the audience and say "Just kidding." But this is not "Wayne's World"--the "Getaway's is not pretending to be stupid--so that never actually happens. Instead, Benyon's body just gets chucked in a well by his bodyguards, after they find him quite dead on his patio.

Baldwin believably plays the assassin and Basinger takes the edge off the blonde ditz that Carol could have become. They are the two serious characters in a sea of overdramatized and not-so-sauve villians. They work well together in the action scenes that require shooting and keeping track of the money. In scenes requiring extended dialogue, they lapse. When carol goes to visit Doc in prison, her demeanor screams "Barbie on a business trip." She seems like she is visiting her agent before a stroll down the runway of a fashion show. Her tone is flat, her acting bland and the expression in her eyes show profound fixation--on the telepromptor. It is only in the sex scenes that we remember that they are married lovers.

The "Getaway" saves itself when Rudy gets a girlfriend, or rather takes a man' wife hostage and drives the husband to hang himself. The audience is reminded not to take the villains too seriously and that this is also supposed to be a lot of fun. When we understand that, we are no longer disappointed that this is not a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat, thriller.

The strength of the film is clearly not in the characters themselves, but in the plot twists that manipulate them. It creates unbelievable premises one after another. This is best appreciated when the McCoys hide out in a dumpster, only to get compacted in the truck and then dumped in a land fill with the rest of the garbage. It makes the garbage scene in "Star "Wars" look like a bath at the Ritz Carlton.

The "Getaway" holds our attention because its pace gradually quickens into a whirlwind. It is a film packed with hilarity, action and fun. The best part about it is that the people who collectively embody all the insipid, distasteful, and downright repugnant personality traits that one might encounter in the course of daily life get blown away. It's very cathartic that way.