Steve McQueen was a badass. I never really understood that until recently. Ofcourse I'd always heard about how cool he was, but I hadn't really seen enough of his films to figure out exactly why. Now I see it. After watching The Getaway, in which McQueen plays former master thief Doc McCoy, I can safely say that McQueen was the coolest actor ever, and if we ever update our Top 5 Mancrushes McQueen will be making an appearance on it.
McQueen plays the aforementioned McCoy, who's just been denied parole. Getting bored and sick of the isolation of prison life, he turns to his hot wife, Carol(Ali McGraw) to broker a deal with Jack Benyon, a corrupt businessma, to get him released. The deal: That McCoy will rob a bank for Benyon. Benyon's only rule is that two his minions, Frank and Rudy, must be in on the caper. During the botched robbery, Rudy tries to doublecross the group, and ends up takin' a few shots to the chest from ol' Doc. Doc and Carol attempt to give Benyon his cut, but they are again doublecrossed, this time by Benyon. The two lovebirds attempt to flee to Mexico, with Benyon's goons and a deranged Rudy in hot pursuit.
The Getaway is hip, stylized, and seems to know it's cooler than every other action film of the time. The opening credit sequence alone had me hooked, with quick cut scenes of McCoy's life on the outside coinciding with the boredom he's currently facing. Director Sam Peckinpah, a film legend by any measure, seems to take great pains to make every scene pop, but he shows his real talent during a brilliant sequence on a train as McCoy pursues a pickpocket through railcar after railcar. The tension in that scene alone makes this film worth renting.
Being as that I'm a guy who appreciates a good villain, I couldn't help but become slightly more interested in the certifiably insane Rudy, as he pursued Doc and Carol cross-country. Rudy kidnaps a young rural couple, and immediately turns out the wife(Sally Struthers!! And she was hot!) and makes her his little loveslave, as the husband sits by and basically just has to take it or risk getting his head blown off. Totally diggin' that! But what I loved even more was the contrast between Rudy and Doc. Doc isn't a good man, either. In fact, he's really not much better than Rudy at all with the exception that he's found a woman that he truly loves, but he's just as prone to violence(even against women) as any of the other bad guys in this film.
I only really have two complaints, and one is Ali McGraw's acting. She's awful. She's considered a sex symbol and rightly so, because there's something about her in this film that makes you wanna scoop her up and sling her over your shoulder. She's not hot in the traditional sense, but she's got some kind of appeal. But I'll be damned if she can act a lick. The other issue I have is with the presentation of the robbery itself, which is given about five minutes of screentime. We see practically no preparation by McCoy and his crew, except for a hasty last second rap session before the heist which I think must've been throw in also at the last second. But I can forgive that because the film is The Getaway, not The Bank Job. The rest of the film is pitch perfect.
7/10
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