Absolutely brilliant

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Blistering performances.

I know Sam Peckinpah's "Getaway" is likely to generate calls for boycott or censorship because of the infamous scene where Steve McQueen slaps Ali McGraw not once but several times, even looking for hitting her face with a closed fist, but when you're aware of some backstories, you know the scene works.I was astonished by how severe in a disappointingly shallow way the film was initially reviewed despite its commercial success (second after "The Godfather"). Roger Ebert, who loved "The Wild Bunch" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue", seemed only concerned by the contrivances in the 'heist' and 'shootout' parts. Yet there's more in the film than robbing a bank, escaping with the sound of screeching sound tires and explosive shotguns, there's more than the usual standards of action movies, what the film got was sexual tension, so palpable you could cut through it. "Doc" McCoy is a convict trying to get parole in the midst of a boring and alienating daily routine, improvising scale models in his cell, playing chess or working at a driving license plates' factory. The machinery, pondered by Quincy Jones' jazzy score, gets quickly on our nerves, working as a perfect metaphor of some deep psychological turmoil. Or is it sentimental?While many criminals or antiheroes seem more telegenic as loners or women's men, Doc has a wife, not a girlfriend. This is a true relationship but one that wouldn't survive for too long if McCoy stays in jail. Heasks Carol to to tell Benyon (a Texan big shot with a nasty looking crew played by Ben Johnson) he would accept any offer. In an amusing ellipse, a sexily dressed Carol joins Benyon off-screen and the scene cuts to Doc's release, whatever happened in-between works like a ticking bomb, we know it.The park scene is one of these quiet poetic moments not so rare with not-so-tough Peckinpah (like the picnic in "Alfredo Garcia"). As McCoy watches people sunbathing, swimming, and snuggling, he imagines he and Carol doing the same. Is he mirroring Sam's own perception of a talent wasted for violence? The way imaginary visions overlap with reality shows a real psychological struggle after four years of repressed emotionality... and sensuality, only McQueen could still look cool with a block, only Sam could be sentimental in a macho flick. After the bucolic interlude, we get some awkward conversations, a few confidences and the ice seems broken the following morning when Doc is cooking breakfast. If you think the robbery or the chase will be the next main story, you'll be surprised, the other focus is also a romance albeit more "conventional" by Peckinpah standards.Doc is assigned two partners for a robbery, a disposable one played by a youngish Bo Hopkins and one of the meanest looking mugs of the seventies, Al Lettieri who was born to play the "baddest guy", as good a match for Brando and Pacino in "The Godfather" as a nemesis for McQueen. His character Rudy is wounded after trying to double-cross Doc who was quicker at the draw... he finds a meek and recluse veterinarian named Harold, and in his slutty blonde wife Fran (Sally Struthers) an unexpected object of sensual attraction. In a scene that wasn't played for subtlety, she sensually caresses his gun, telling him he doesn't need to point it at her... not that gun away. The parallels between the couples how and I loved how the beta one had a growing chemistry while at the same moment, Doc is slapping the hell out of Carol after he finds out how he got the ticket for freedom. She makes things worse when she almost loses the loot in the train station after being conned by another "Godfather" alumni. Unlike Richard, she wasn't so "bright" within the circumstances, but she had an attitude.Sam makes us think, a woman like Fran gave her body for nothing, Carol sold her own for her husband's freedom and he's got the nerve to accuse her. Now is he bitter because his wife is a slut or because he couldn't get clean again by soiling the woman he loved the most? The two relationships reach pivotal moments. Harold, the cuckold husband after one humiliation too many, hangs himself much to Fran and Rudy's indifference. Later, Doc and Carol finally reestablish their relationship. They decide to move forward and leave the past behind or where it belongs, in the most adequate place, a garbage dump. So we have a "good couple / bad couple" situation, but both on the wrong side from the law and the closest thing to a moral scope is marriage. The climactic shootout is another instance where the maverick director proved his mastery of the action but after "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs", there's not much new stuff to praise, though I enjoyed the cameo of Dub Taylor, that hilarious punch Struthers got for not keeping her mouth shut. As sad as it was, I guess Rudy's death was the perfect revenge of Karma for what Fran did to her husband. Karma-wise, it's also appropriate that the last helping hand comes from an old-fashioned cowboy played by Slim Pickens (another great cameo) who rants about the lack of morality and marital commitment while describing his wife as a pillar in his life, he gets a great retribution.But I wasn't glad that the good couple could get away it with the money, but because they did it together, but maybe Ali McGraw should have learned a lesson from the film. She treated producers Robert Evans like Fran with Harold, she couldn't resist McQueen who revealed himself to be quite a "Rudy" with her.... and her career was derailed like Fran's life.That fact of life made the sexual tension believable because the actors didn't play it, but it's crazy how truth can be stranger than fiction, bitchier too.

Sam Peckinpah was one of those craftsmen who made violence on the screen look like poetry in motion. He was one of those filmmakers who helped to re-invent and introduce American audiences to a new kind of film. He certainly succeeds with "The Getaway." Steve McQueen was at the height of his box office drawing power when he made this movie. He and Peckinpah complimented each other. The action set pieces are first class but "The Getaway" also has a good story that cranks up the tension a notch or two. Easily one of the best crime movies of all time.

Anything Tarentino does today, Peckinpah was doing 40 years ago. Like all Sam's films, this is timeless. Because of the mindless, moronic, boorish and abusive flak she's been getting on this website, I can't help saying that Ali McCoy's acting in her role as McQueen's wife was flawlessness personified. I cannot imagine anyone else playing this part with greater poise and presence. However, I'm British. McQueen is good on the whole, but I equally can't help saying that he tends to annoy and irritate me slightly. Perhaps it's because he always seems a little bit full of himself, setting out to steal whatever scene he's in. He watches himself being cool, especially without dialogue. And he doesn't do all his own stunts, as it's claimed.None of this matters, since the film is directed by Peckinpah, who is very clearly one of America's consistently great film directors. His films get better the more you watch them, though some of them are remarkably unpleasant. Not this one, though Lettieri comes close. I must watch it again, to see why Mrs McCoy is collecting all those offensive remarks for no reason. This movie is perhaps the nearest Sam ever gets to a comedy. It's light on philosophy. The baddies get theirs, and the good guys get away with murder. No honour among these thieves.

The Getaway is the 1972 box office smash that featured legendary director Sam Peckinpah at his stylish best and capitalized on the off- the-charts chemistry between Steve McQueen and his new bride at the time, Ali MacGraw.McQueen plays Doc McCoy, a recently released-from-jail career criminal who is coerced into a bank robbery by the crooked warden (Ben Johnson), aided by his wife, Carol (Ali MacGraw) and his old crew. When things go wrong at the robbery, including the death of one of Doc's men (Bo Hopkins) and when another crew member (Al Lettieri) turns on the McCoys, it forces the couple on the run.Peckinpah's nearly flawless eye for cinematic violence is one of the things that makes this film so completely watchable. Watch the scene where McQueen levels a police car with a shot gun...Peckinpah once again makes the art of cinematic violence look almost musical...like a slow- motion ballet. Very few directors have accomplished as much over the years with the art of slow motion as Sam Peckinpah. Mention should also be made of a hair-raising scene that takes place on a garbage truck that the McCoys are forced to hide in.Despite MacGraw's limited acting skills, there is no denying the white hot chemistry she had with the late McQueen. Ben Johnson is appropriately slimy as the warden and Al Lettieri is bone-chilling and works well with Sally Struthers, who plays the innocent housewife who becomes his hostage.The film was remade in 1994 with Alex Baldwin and Kim Basinger, but as I usually say in reviews like this one, stick with the original. An instant classic that has great re-watch appeal, even almost fifty years after its original release.