A Perfect Getaway

Remember Scream, the 1996 slasher movie about self-aware teens who knew about slasher movies? Well, here's A Perfect Getaway, a plot twist thriller about self-aware people who know about plot twist thrillers! The mystery at the center of the story is fairly easy to figure out on its own. Writer-director David Twohy (The Chronicles of Riddick) makes it even easier, by constantly bringing stuff like "second act twists" and "red herrings" to our attention by having the characters talking about it.

The movie is all about the twist, and when you take that away, A Perfect Getaway kind of loses all reason for even being up there on the screen. The movie is constantly trying to deceive us, not because it's clever, but because it probably couldn't be a feature length movie if it wasn't trying to throw us off. It's a simple story, and while there's nothing particularly wrong with that, it's also flimsy. The main characters are three couples who are all walking along the same isolated wilderness trail in Hawaii. Tension grows when reports of a gruesome murder along the trail begins to spread. Everyone starts eyeing everyone else with suspicion. Meanwhile, we the audience can only think about the fact that the movie seems to be shining a more suspicious light on certain people than others. So, they are naturally red herrings. The movie even calls this to our attention, by having the characters actually talking about red herrings in movies. In Scream, it seemed clever when the kids were talking about the "rules" of surviving a horror movie. Here, it seems like Twohy is talking directly to us, and is basically telling us a big surprise is on the way.

The story is mostly seen through the eyes of a recently wed couple named Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich). They're on the island for their honeymoon. The other main couple are Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and Gina (Kiele Sanchez). They have a lot of experience with the region, and at first are friendly and helpful toward the newlyweds. But then, there's talk of the murder, and Cliff and Cydney begin to see their new friends a little differently. Nick's a bit of an oddball with a knack for weapons and killing animals. They're likewise unnerved by Gina's skillful and precise way she can gut an animal that Nick kills at one point. The other couple that draws Cliff and Cydney's suspicion are Kale (Chris Hernsworth) and Cleo (Marley Shelton) - a strange pair who seem to constantly be on the boiling point, and are about to snap at any moment. As Cliff and Cydney start to fear for their lives with these numerous uncomfortable run-ins with weirdos, the characters keep on talking about movies where things are not what they seem. Cliff's a screenwriter, you see, and has just sold his first script. He has many conversations with Nick about thrillers and plot twists.

Sure enough, things are not what they seem in A Perfect Getaway. How could they be, when the movie so desperately shows its desire to lead us down one direction that we just know it can't be the right one? When the big reveal comes, I felt somewhat insulted. The movie spends 10 minutes explaining its own twist in a lengthy series of flashbacks, showing us things that happened before we came in, and things we didn't get to see in earlier scenes. It's like Twohy is so impressed with his own twist, he feels the need to over-explain everything, like he's afraid we wouldn't understand. By doing this, he beats his own reveal down into the ground. After all this, the movie spends its last half hour being a psycho-stalker movie, with characters on the run from the killer. While the head games it plays with us during the first half may have been obvious and constantly drawing attention to themselves, at least it seemed like the movie was trying. During the last half, the true flimsy nature of the story reveals itself. There's nothing left to show other than people running around the wilderness, killing each other.

It's a shame the whole thing ends up being a let down, because I was liking the characters. Character actor Steve Zahn has a certain nerdy charm as somewhat nervous Cliff, who seems to be the first to realize that something's not quite right with these people he's hanging around. In a rare turn from her more action-heavy roles, Milla Jovovich gets a couple nice scenes, especially when she's alone with Sanchez's character, and talking about her life. Olyphant also has a very nice bizarre vibe that not only makes him suspicious, but interesting. We want to see how his character turns out. And yet, while the performances are enjoyable, the nature of the movie has us constantly second guessing them. Are we seeing them for who they are, or for who they are pretending to be? It's sadly too obvious who's pretending, and that's what ends up sinking the film.

If A Perfect Getaway had been a little more subtle or not drawn so much attention to itself, I probably would have liked it more. It's a simple little B-thriller that would have been effective if Twohy had taken the direct approach with his screenplay, rather than trying too hard to be clever. You can see how the idea could have worked. Too bad the movie itself doesn't have enough confidence in it.

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