An absolute catastrophe of a film!

I was never big on MacGraw,but there was some chemistry there,and that means more than some pumped up blonde bimbo being eye candy to McQueens brooding temper.That wouldnt work.

THANK YOU dirtmerchant. I know we'll catch a lot of flak for admitting it, but this is not a well written, acted, paced, sound-tracked, or conceived movie. Just about everything you mentioned made me go 'what the hell, did everyone just ignore how slow and stupid what just happened was?' while I was watching this. But the cinematography and directing were at least enjoyable, I would agree on that.

And my god the opening act has to be one of the worst ever recorded to film. It doesn't develop his character, it doesn't move the plot along, it's just 20 minutes of NOTHING for the sake of this movie pretending to be more than it really was. 1/6 of the movies run-time just went down the drain on nothingness, and as an audience we need to not just 'let that go'. Basically this movie could start when he's having lunch on the boat with the bad guy, and it would be better paced and you'd lose NO development or plot advancement.

Anyway, back on topic, this deserves about a 5 or 6 out of 10 in my opinion. Talk about seeing a movie through 'rose colored glasses' of nostalgia for most people. This is the most standard heist movie you could come across even if you tried... I gave up after it had been an hour and I knew no more, and cared even less, about the characters in this movie than when it started. Now that is hard to do in my opinion... have me spend an hour with these characters and do that.



In-film effects > CGI

"The two leads have zero chemistry whatsoever"
No chemistry between McQueen & McGraw? Somebody should have told them that future husband & wife. The entire movie hinges on the pent up tension between the two. If you missed this then it's no wonder why you wouldn't get the rest of the movie.

"lets just ignore that the scene takes place on the side of a busy highway right after theyve committed a murder."
No lets not ignore it because it's not a busy highway, there isn't any traffic to be seen at all!! We don't know how far they have driven from Bennion it's not stated & as far as they now his body hasn't been found, so why worry about stopping? Try & bring that up as a criticism is odd, & shows how little you have actually thought about it.


"Now the heist. First the obligatory heist planning scenes. He watches the bank from a hotel room across the street, with no thought to subtlety whatsoever. Why do banks in movies always seem to have vacant hotel rooms looking right at their front doors? The plan itself is at the same time needlessly complicated and absurdly amateurish."
Now going by the previosu two points & showing your lack of attention to detail, I would remind you that this movie is about the relationship between the two main characters & about The Getaway, not the heist. Which itself is uncomplicated, how you came to the conclusion that it was complicated is beyond me!!

"The villain arranges for McQueen to be let out of jail, so that he can rob a bank whose safe can be breached with a pair of bolt cutters! Retarded!"
Watch again, MCQueen says he is "For sale" it's his idea & Bennion takes him up on it simple to get into McGraws panties.

"Why buy a whole truck full of hay just to set a bomb off in it?"
Who says they bought a truck full of hay? Who says it wasn't there already.

"They could plant them anywhere, and why not set them off before or coinciding with the heist?"
What purposes would seting them off before or coinciding serve? They were there to create confusion to aid in the...Getaway.

"If they werent driving like lunatics they wouldnt have needed a diversion in the first place."
See above

"We are led to believe that Rudy and the other guy are professionals, but their main qualification seems to be gun ownership. They dont even have any real role to play aside from crowd control, and the young guy botches that entirely. He just lets the guard lay there on the ground with his gun at arms length. Why cant he have pulled a backup piece from an ankle holster? Just not a smartly written scene at all."
Professional psycopaths, it's obvious Rudy is a double hard b*****d along purely to double cross McQueen. Ankle holster, oh no.


"Then after its all gone bad he still goes strolling in to pay the man, which he thinks hes set up cleverly by making a bunch of people answer the phone! Im not a screenwriter, but im sure there are about a thousand more inventive ways for him to ensure his safety, like for starters let them go get their money from somewhere dont hand deliver the loot! Moron!"
It's a non point, it's a simple set up which you want to complicate, when there is no reason to. The movie is about "The Getaway", there is nothing wrong with this set-up whatsoever.


"So now they are on run, and they keep being spotted everywhere. Which is not hard to believe since they make no attempt at a low profile even after they know they are wanted. Well whatever at least I'll finally get to see these car chases Ive heard so much about right? Wrong. The car chases are minimal, and get this, Bullit is letting the woman drive the car!"
Doc McCoy, not Bullitt, you are obviously havng problems differentiating between movies.


"Driving them towards the hotel where the gangsters are already expecting them to be at."
They think everyone is dead, that it's only the cops they ahve to deal with.

"Duh! Rudy ofcourse reaches the hotel while theyre off dumpster diving, and tells the manager he'll be shot if he doesnt let Rudy know when Doc arrives. Does Rudy keep a gun at the mans back? No he is upstairs in bed. So why not call the cops? Why not warn Doc when he gets there?"
Because he fears Rudy the psychopath, & is a profounly dishonest man.

"The scene on the train (shameless Hitchcock ripoff) and the closing scene where he kills all the bad guys with the shot gun (especially guy in elevator) are actually pretty well done--ignore the fact that they had no reason to be in the train station or the hotel-- but a couple of nice slices dont make up for a rotten pie."
Shamless Hitchcock ripoff? Which Hitchcock??? Strangers on a Train perhaps given your attention span & attention to detail.


"Ill give some credit to the cinematographer. The movie is visually very good, aside from that faker-than-fake looking blood.
One other thing, Stop teasing me with Sally struthers big pie wagon of an ass. If ever there were a movie that could have benefitted from a little pointless nudity this is it, but alas again this film does not deliver."

Jesus help us.

I was going to just post that you are wrong, because you are, but I thought no I'll justify myself & every point. Because The Getaway deserves it, cool class.

Agree, a total letdown.

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Wow, talk about people having different opinions! The Getaway is one of my all time favorite movies. The casting, with the exception of Ali McGraw, who I've always found kind of repulsive, the opposite of "hot", is about perfect. What McQueen saw in her, I don't know. There's a lot of funny bits, and Al Lettieri, as almost always does, excels as the foaming at the mouth psycho Rudy. Jack Dodson and Sally Struthers as husband and wife is just a bizarre idea in itself. I saw it on opening day, and it was the first DVD I ever bought. A Blu-Ray disc will be bought one of these days.

I just saw it for the first time, on Blu-ray, and I quite enjoyed it (8/10 stars). But at the same time, I can't deny there were a number of what either count as plot holes or just plain incompetence by the leads. I'd add: why not just sneak out the fire escape of the hotel to begin with, instead of first starting a firefight with the heavily armed guys in the lobby? And while I give him credit for not shooting Rudy in cold blood when he's passed out in the hallway, why not just take his gun along instead of dumping the bullets out but leaving it where he could find it? There were some other guns he should have picked up along the way too.

But again, there's just something enjoyable about this movie even if it doesn't really add up. I've been curious about this movie ever since I heard the song "Steve McQueen" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSzUBvwe6kg) and I'm glad I've now seen it.