Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
The Getaway is a strange beast, constructed of three parts almost entirely different in character: a daring heist, a bitter relationship-drama, and happy a riding-off-into-the-sunset. Ooops, spoilers! Roger Ebert's scathing review explains the problems with the heist (and, indeed, the rest of the plot); it's not worth talking about, though the action isn't bad by the standards of the time.
The drama, on the other hand, is more interesting. It's pure Peckinpah: double and triple-crosses; misogynistic men beating their adulterous women; treachery and violence at every turn. Life sucks and then you die.
Peckinpah was a perfect fit for the novel's original ending, apparently one of bleak, existential horror as Doc and Carol arrive to begin their new -- and almost certainly unpleasant -- life in the thieves' paradise of El Rey. Instead, apparently at Steve McQueen's insistence, the film suffers a bizarre anticlimax when it abruptly changes gears from despair to joy. One moment their relationship is falling apart; the next, they ride off into the sunset to breezy Quincy Jones jazz. It just ends.
What the hell? There are two movies here, one a happy McQueen action flick and one a clone of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Apart, they might have been worth watching; together, they're a disaster. The sum is much, much less than the parts.