Before watching "The Getaway," I thought it would be a decent, entertaining, 70s-style action film - not a classic, but a solid, enjoyable movie. Steve McQueen was known as one of the first "cool" movie stars, and rightly so. Sam Peckinpah was known for directing movies that were violent, stylish, and fast-paced. With "The Getaway" he scored one out of three. What little violence there is isn't even entertaining, since it's not "action," per se, but rather criminals murdering other criminals.
For a story about bank robbers on the run from the police and other criminals, "The Getaway" is surprisingly lifeless and anemic. The plot has no drive or momentum. There are a couple of head-scratching segments that seem completely out of place, as if the screenwriter ran out of ideas and had to stop and think for fifteen minutes before writing the next scene. On top of all that, Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw both play unsympathetic characters, and the numerous scenes with Al Lettieri and the woman who becomes his hostage/lover just hurt your eyes.
"The Getaway" has no redeeming qualities: it's boring, it's unpleasant, it's sleazy, it's too long, and the plot makes little sense. In fact, if this movie had been made with an unknown director and unknown cast, it's unlikely that it would be known today at all. That's how bad "The Getaway" is.
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