“Get in, get out” Getaway‘s tagline reads – an obvious parallel to the ideology that went on back in the writer’s room in this fart-and-hairspray fireball of a movie. Repping ADHD filmmaking at its most nauseous and nonchalant, Courtney Solomon (Dungeons and Dragons) directs Getaway like an 11-year old waving around a smart phone, clicking the camera on and off with no intent and no semblance of artistry. Each sequence leapfrogs between an unmeasured amount of angles, demonstrating Solomon’s lack of faith in his framing and making the experience of watching it akin to a scatter-shot montage lingering on for 90 minutes. It’s a grueling slog intent on leaving a wake of smashed-up vehicles – I counted 23 un-inventively totaled police cars, countless wrecked civilian automobiles and five exploding motorcycles – but not much else.

I’ve become an increasingly avid fan of Hawke’s – and found his work in this year’s Before Midnight to be the finest performance of 2013 to date – but he is saddled with some dialogue that’s so clunky that I feel I have to begrudge him simply for not outright refusing to say them at all. A late stage, “I know where she is!” (spoken to himself and no-one else) is the type of wrong-kind-of-laugh-inducing ringer that invites a level 5 face-palming. It’s just embarrassing for everyone involved and it’s nothing short of sad to see such a talented actor stoop to such lows.

I guess this brings us to what would be referred to here as the “plot”. Since about 95% of the film takes place inside a moving Shelby GT500, you can imagine that the plot lacking in both quantity and quality. Hawke is Brent Magna – a retired racecar driver, disgraced from the tracks for his recklessness and a tendency to destroy cars. On Christmas Day in Bulgaria (because where else would a disgraced racer want to spend the holidays?) his wife is nabbed by some faceless baddies and Magna is told that he’s got to drive a car into a bunch of stuff or they’ll kill her. Without a bat of an eye, Magna’s in the car, skidding his car into the midst of crowded parks, missing the mobs of holiday-cheerers by inches and thinking none the less of it.

The screenplay undercutting this vapid turd reads like a cheap, pointless and, worst of all, unasked for mashup of Saw and Fast and Furious. It involves a metric fuck-ton of driving, a heft of smashing, a dastardly villain who we only get to know by his (non-intimidating) voice, and a pinch of walking for good measure. Just kidding. We never once see Hawke move his legs, unless he’s a-shiftin’ with those racey feet of his. Like a road trip to hell with all the relatives we like least, we’re trapped inside the car for what quickly starts to seem like an eternity. The worst part of it all, Selena Gomez somehow snuck herself along for the ride.

But at least one consolation comes from this ten-car pileup of a film –  Gomez’s acting career can officially be swept under the rug once and for all. A young hacker known only as “The Kid”, Gomez is plainly more of a hack than a hacker. Name me one real life hacker whose idea of hacking means jamming their sausage fingers at an iPad with buttons like “Override” on the main screen and I’ll withdrawal my complaint. Perhaps hacking in the 21st century really is that easy but I seriously doubt it.

On the “hack” side of the equation though, there is overwhelming evidence that Gomez couldn’t act her way out of a bologna sandwich. There is not a single second (not the teensiest, tiniest crumb of time) where we believe that Gomez is capable of a tenth of the technological feats her character is supposedly carrying out. I could more easily believe that my friend’s dog Lucy could carve an ice swan than this curmudgeon do anything technical beyond tweeting a rave pic. Perhaps even more offensive are her completely unwarranted personality swings. Shifting on a dime scene-to-scene without any connection to past progress, Gomez can’t seem to keep her character straight. Never has it been so evident that a movie is not made front-to-back as Gomez seems incapable of keeping her arc linear without retreating into territory she’s already supposed to have moved beyond. 

Another character who gets the old writers block treatment is Jon Voight‘s strangely brewed criminal mastermind. With a nonspecific accent about as intimidating as a stale cupcake, and just about as flavorless, Voight’s grin is the only believable thing he’s selling here. Why? Because he’s laughing his way to the bank. His performance calls for so little that he may as well have been sitting in a sound booth and munching on bon-bons. That is the gist of his performance: sitting around, munching on bon-bons and grinning at the idiots handing him money to do it.

Like 70s exploitation without the sly, sarcastic sense of fun, Getaway leaves its trail of half-baked destruction but buries any sense of charmed wit along the way. Instead, this thriller on life support has its excitement pumped in at the rate of dial-up

internet. With only one long-shot in the entirety of the film worth mentioning at all, the result is so watered down that there’s hardly any taste left in it at all. Unfortunate proof that Solomon is a powder keg of a director, Getaway is little more than a generic waste of time and money. It may strike a chord for Shelby enthusiasts with a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with Bulgaria, but everyone else: do yourself a favor and steer clear.

D-

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Closed Circuit is a faux-intellectual “thriller” cloaked in paranoia and government conspiracies that we’ve seen done in a more exciting manner many times before. It churns along turgidly, hoping to capitalize on anti-government sentiment but merely stirs up our desire to check our watches. Although there is a somewhat significant message buried in the narrative discourse, the fact that it’s only about one level deep does little to excite the imagination, much less inspire any sort of conversation exiting the film.

In the mix of the scramble to figure out who is who and where trust can be placed, the film flexes a whole lot of beer-belly-tautness. Flabby scenes make for drooping excitement and it isn’t long before we don’t really even care whose life is in danger. All the babbling adds up to narrative fat that should have been trimmed and tidied before it scurried past the cutting room floor. Even with a run-time a touch over an hour and a half, a vacuum of suspense makes it feel like a much longer haul. Feet dragging its way to the finishing line, Closed Circuit doesn’t do enough to keep tensions high, and in doing so, jettisons any audience anxious for excitement.

While Bana was the sole reason I even made an effort to go see this film, as his diverse track record usually winds up more on the “hit” side of the dartboard for me, his effort here is hardly staggering. His portrayal of Rose isn’t a cop out but his character’s arc is just divinely uninteresting. Hardly moving far on the spectrum of character, he’s a man who we have to deal with more than one that we actively cheer for. Between casting concerned glances and trying not to act too concerned, he’s concerned with being concerned. Did I mention his concern? While the ultimate failure of this film can hardly be laid at Bana’s feet, I hope that he was the victim of the editing process and is as disappointed as I am in the final product.

Hall similarly is hardly of interest. Her character is a strong-female type with an upstanding moral code – a rote miscalculation of the empowered woman. She’s a bit of a question mark, albeit the familiar tropes thinly painted on her. We wind up not knowing much more about her than we did when she first appears on screen. Again, an arc is missing – another bit of paramount import thrown to the wind.

Even more frigid than these stoic cutouts is the chemistry between just about every actor sharing the screen. Hall and Bana just don’t seem to be clicking off each other, suggesting that any sort of prior relationship was as steamy as pistachio gelato. Even when they argue, the passion is absent. Dead eyes bounce off one another in scene after scene. Similarly the supporting characters rounding out the cast do little to amp up a sense of fullness.

Julia Stiles enters and exits without making a single impression, Ciarán Hinds tries to round out his unflattering role but his effort proves futile and Jim Broadbent is a shade of intimidation, although perhaps the most interesting performer onscreen just because he has a glint of something lurking behind his eyes other than concern.

Humming along like ants under a microscope, it becomes clear that the characters don’t really matter at all. They are just as much set pieces as the sound studios this was filmed in – scaffolding upon which to build a thinly veiled political message. But this deus-ex-machina doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Even though concerns over surveillance and government corruption are timely positioned with outcry over NSA oversteps, Crowley fails to illuminate the subject in an intriguing light. Accordingly, he’s proved why so many people avoid politics, because not even a movie about the subject could avoid the inevitable yawns.

So Crowley’s greatest crime is that he’s crafted a bore-fest. Political angles wrought with finger pointing are undone by naive filmmaking that supposes politicking can alone triumph over genuine thrills. It’s a cold experience, unlikely to shake up anything but a big “meh” and a feeling that more than a mere hour and a half was wasted.

D+

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