Initially posted on 4.21.21: After re-watching Sam Peckinpah and Steve McQueen‘s The Getaway (’72) a couple of nights ago, I’m all the more certain that Roger Donaldson’s 1994 remake, in which Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger took on the same Doc and Carol McCoy roles that McQueen and Ali McGraw played 22 years earlier, is a smoother, more involving watch.
The Peckinpah version has a few moments, but it’s also nonsensical at times.
Why doesn’t McQueen shoot Al Lettieri in the head after the bank job?
Those middle-aged, cowboy-hat-wearing goons who work for Ben Johnson and his moustachioed brother are ridiculous.
There’s no reason for McGraw’s bizarre lurching the car when McQueen’s about to get in.
The sappy ending with Slim Pickens after crossing the border…c’mon.
And why would Richard Bright‘s train station con artist, who’s pocketed a couple of wads of cash, go to the cops just because McQueen beat him up? He can’t find a local clinic?
Huisache: “With the exception of Ride The High Country, The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs all of Sam Peckinpah’s films are messes of one magnitude or another, with Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia the biggest mess of all.
“The Getaway is enjoyable but the Slim Pickens ending is emblematic of Peckinpah’s resort to just saying ‘screw it, how do I get out of this mess? It was just nailed on. Sam had a mess and he called Pickens for help and the old feller bailed him out with a glorious good-ole-boy bit.
“I saw the film when it came out and was living in the area where it was filmed in central Texas. I thought it a very enjoyable mess and the Pickens ending a hoot. But that’s all the film is — an enjoyable hoot. Acting like it’s some kind of worthy project is a bridge too far.
“I suppose Sam’s problem was his alcoholism and his anti-social personality disorder. Either way the guy had a hard time making the pieces fit into the holes.”
HE reply: “Thank you — 100% correct about the nagging ‘mess’ factor. Totally dead-on. That said, Ride The High Country, The Wild Bunch and, as you noted, Straw Dogs are not messes. And there are many reasons to respect Junior Bonner. And I’ve never even seen Noon Wine.”
By the way: At the end of The Getaway Slim Pickens’ character tells Steve McQueen‘s Doc McCoy that he makes around $5K annually, or roughly $31,683 in 2021 dollars. That works out to roughly $2640 a month — an impoverished lifestyle. McQueen offers Pickens $10K or over $60K in 2021 dollars for his beat-up, piece-of-shit pickup truck. Pickens figures they’ll pay more so he says “how about $20K?” or the 2021 equivalent of a bit more than $120K…for a shitty pickup truck! And then Ali McGraw counters with “how about $30K?” or the 2021 equivalent of a bit more than $180K…for a piece-of-shit pickup truck! That, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s known as a messy ending.