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. 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?
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