The Getaway

Colour, 35 mm
USA, 1972, 122 min
Section: Tribute to Sam Peckinpah

Synopsis

One of the Sam Peckinpah’s most commercially successful films which, despite the star-studded cast (legendary Steve McQueen and talented Ali MacGraw), is nonetheless overshadowed by The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs in the context of his filmography. The truth of this may be hotly contested, but the fact still remains that here the director presented a brilliant film exposé on the crime drama genre. Before we begin to follow the dramatic escapades of paroled bank robber Doc McCoy and his lover Carol, chased not only by the police but also by a corrupt politician they tricked into arranging Doc’s release, Peckinpah opens his film with an ingenious introduction that deftly pulls the viewer into the impersonal machinery of the correctional facility and the neuroticising micro world of the prisoner-protagonist. After the wonderfully rhythmical prologue, a rough treat follows for lovers of the genre, involving a suitcase with half a million dollars which the fugitives take with them during their escape to Mexico, fabled exile of all the American renegades.