Getaway

Now at the lake, Tamara, Maddie, and Brooke are reveling in unbounded fun. But I can’t necessarily say viewers will revel in that similar feeling. Along with Tamara, Scout Taylor-Compton’s Maddie and Landry Allbright’s Brooke are not developed characters, let alone likable ones. If done effectively, contemptuous or tawdry characters can attract the same amount of intrigue and introspection as a likable protagonist, maybe even more so. But that is easier said than done. In the unfortunate case of Getaway, the utter unlikability and unformed essence of these characters make you yearn to get away from them.

Jaclyn Betham and Lane Toran’s script doesn’t ever give the protagonist or murderers any fascinating attributes, or any reasons why we should give them our undivided attention. Tamara is tirelessly overweening, while the three killers are simply left to wallow in godly rhetoric that becomes too silly to digest seriously. What I can take more seriously is Erin Naifeh’s cinematography, which nicely captures the leafy and foreboding backland setting from Tamara’s perspective with a nifty selection of POV and reaction shots. The serenity of the location feeds into the fear of isolation. All while the exploitation of religion fuels a curious evil that’s worth exploring or fearing, though the movie fails to see it through.

“…lacks a natural vision because of its haphazard script.”

When Tamara gets kidnapped by the cult, her two best friends disappear for the latter half of the film, which is one of many reasons why their development is hindered. This backwoods cult is religiously grooming Tamara, but the situation becomes all the more unworldly when pentagrams mysteriously show up, and spectral noises are heard. For a while, it’s unclear if the pious killers are hallucinating these events out of guilt, or if a vengeful spirit is toying with the killers. Either one of which could have added significant thematic weight. Soon enough, the script takes a sudden turn for the worst, as a game-changing reveal comes across as hopelessly synthetic and weirdly unplanned.

Getaway lacks a natural vision because of its haphazard script. It’s as if Lane Toran and Jaclyn Betham just jotted the characters’ names on a paper and the first “shocking” twist that came to mind, and then called it a day. You have three religious freaks and a damsel in distress to keep one busy, but the execution is uninterestingly subdued, and the characters are dull. Perhaps the film is speaking in a literal sense, and you should stay away. But if you do take the trip, you’ll encounter exhaustingly snide characters and an illogically kooky twist.