Weekly meditations from your humble messenger
Deliverance
(A Perfect Getaway, 8/17/09)
By Nicholas Nicastro
The
biggest industry in the world isn't computers, weapons, or narcotics—it's
tourism. Yet strangely enough, Americans workers holiday less than those
of any other industrialized nation: at an average of 13 days a year,
that's half the time taken by South Koreans and Japanese, and about
a third the average Italian or German. What does this have to do with
David Twohy's popcorn thriller A Perfect Getaway? Nothing specifically—but
the movie does exhibit nicely our national inability to slow down, tune
out, and chill. Even in the jaw-dropping perfection of tropical Hawaii,
Twohy's characters seem almost perversely unwilling to relax. Instead,
they are eager to engage in energy-intensive activities like hiking,
hunting, fretting the next guy is a murderer, and trying to kill each
other.
The script (also by Twohy) focuses
on three couples out hiking a remote seaside trail in Kauai. Cliff and
Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are eager, fresh-faced newlyweds;
Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez) are slightly off-kilter
Southerners, and Kale and Cleo (Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton)
are scary tattooed freaks. None of them are enjoying their vacation
because of news from Honolulu: one of these couples is a Natural
Born Killers-style team of murderers. (Hmm, based on what you know
Twohy knows about your expectations, can you guess which one?)
Of course you can. But that's not
the reason A Perfect Getaway is just an OK thriller, not a perfect
one. Though slickly packaged, with stunning Hawaiian locations and good
characterizations, the movie is guilty of breaking the cardinal rule
of the psycho-thriller: though shalt not grossly mislead the viewer.
Red herrings of plot are fine, of course, as are strong visual cues
to throw you off the trail—just think how a truly skilled technician
like Roman Polanski would have made this movie a festival of free-floating
suspicion. But [SPOILER ALERT!] having the couple that is most worried
about encountering the murderers, even in private, then actually
turn out to be the murderers, is cheating, plain and simple.
A Perfect Getaway isn't without
some fun. Timothy Olyphant (the sheriff in the superb Deadwood
) is particularly memorable as a Gulf War II vet with a titanium-lined
head and a knapsack full of hair-raising stories. Milla Jovovich (Resident
Evil, The Fifth Element) is no Streep, but give her her due: she
can act, and she's not averse to looking less than ravishing for the
sake of her art. The most that can be said for Twohy, writer/director
of the pretty good Pitch Black and the execrable Chronicles
of Riddick, is that he has obviously attended his share of screenwriter
seminars. (Isn't it interesting how teaching screenwriting has become
big business, but the art of writing for film is languishing like never
before?)
If it's date night at the multiplex,
there are enough cheap frights here to keep your date in your lap. Feel
free to add half a star. But this reviewer, dateless, went home yearning
for a better getaway.
©2009 Nicholas Nicastro
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