KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Jon Corelis The Getaway (1972) more than fulfills the expectations we bring to a Sam Peckinpah film, being tough, suspenseful, gritty, and unsentimental, with a nod to Peckinpah's personal mythology of Mexico as the mythic country where the rules are different -- the protagonists don't actually get there, but it is the destination of their whole violent odyssey. Steve McQueen, at his iciest, and Ali MacGraw are a Bonnie-and-Clyde style bank robbing couple who pull a big heist which, of course, goes horribly wrong: in the aftermath they have to dodge both their double- and -triple-crossing partners and the police to escape the country with their loot. The film has a number of stunning sequences -- the scenes where the couple hide in a dumpster and end up being slid into landfill is a classic -- and suspense is kept up throughout. The film's main defect is Ali MacGraw's lackluster performance -- she's at her most effective when she just stands there and lets the photography present her as a warm-blooded sexual foil to McQueen's cold-bloodedness. (Incidentally, McQueen and MacGraw were married after meeting doing this film.) A more memorable performance is given by Sally Struthers as a 180-degree opposite of the wholesome girl next door that is her usual public image.Advisory: if you know Peckinpah films, you know this will be replete with sex and, especially, violence.I saw this the 2005 Warner Home Video standard DVD; which was of good quality. There is now also a Blu-Ray, which I suppose would be better.

Gideon24 The Getaway is the 1972 box office smash that featured legendary director Sam Peckinpah at his stylish best and capitalized on the off- the-charts chemistry between Steve McQueen and his new bride at the time, Ali MacGraw.McQueen plays Doc McCoy, a recently released-from-jail career criminal who is coerced into a bank robbery by the crooked warden (Ben Johnson), aided by his wife, Carol (Ali MacGraw) and his old crew. When things go wrong at the robbery, including the death of one of Doc's men (Bo Hopkins) and when another crew member (Al Lettieri) turns on the McCoys, it forces the couple on the run.Peckinpah's nearly flawless eye for cinematic violence is one of the things that makes this film so completely watchable. Watch the scene where McQueen levels a police car with a shot gun...Peckinpah once again makes the art of cinematic violence look almost musical...like a slow- motion ballet. Very few directors have accomplished as much over the years with the art of slow motion as Sam Peckinpah. Mention should also be made of a hair-raising scene that takes place on a garbage truck that the McCoys are forced to hide in.Despite MacGraw's limited acting skills, there is no denying the white hot chemistry she had with the late McQueen. Ben Johnson is appropriately slimy as the warden and Al Lettieri is bone-chilling and works well with Sally Struthers, who plays the innocent housewife who becomes his hostage.The film was remade in 1994 with Alex Baldwin and Kim Basinger, but as I usually say in reviews like this one, stick with the original. An instant classic that has great re-watch appeal, even almost fifty years after its original release.

funkyfry As this film ably demonstrates, literally and symbolically, if you aim a shotgun at a big enough target, you're gonna hit something. This film takes a lot of the more controversial and distasteful aspects of "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs" and presents them devoid of all philosophical content. It's a triumph of style over substance. I get it -- in 1972, McQueen and Peckinpah were both in need of a box-office hit. So they got Ali McGraw, who can't act to save her life but manages to get halfway there in this film, and off they go on a crime spree. Author David Weddle noted in his book on Peckinpah that the director made off with about $500,000 at the end of the day -- the same amount McQueen and McGraw's characters made from the heist. Fitting.It's not a "bad" movie.... the performances are underwhelming, pretty much all around (Ben Johnson disappears too quickly to make much more than an impression), but the action scenes are compelling and the suspense is strong. The story does not make a lot of sense.... for example, Johnson's character is sitting there in the house with all that loot just waiting for McQueen, under the assumption that McQueen's wife is going to betray him. This powerful, cynical man had no back- up plan whatsoever? Time and again, Peckinpah puts pedal to the metal and blasts right through story and character logic, but we don't mind too much.It's sort of a high-class drive-in movie.... not quite as much mayhem as "Gone in 60 Seconds", but close. McQueen and McGraw are a super sexy couple, and there's an amusing (although sadistic) side story with Sally Struthers and the suitably disgusting Al Lettieri. It's the sort of film Jack Hill would make if he had a bit more money; the stuff that Tarantino fans' dreams are made of.

Scott LeBrun King of cool Steve McQueen teams with "Bloody Sam" Peckinpah for this thoroughly engaging story of a couple on the lam following a botched robbery.Walter Hill adapts the novel by Jim Thompson in this story of Carter "Doc" McCoy (McQueen), a criminal currently doing time. His wife Carol (Ali MacGraw) manages to secure his release by playing up to crooked parole board chief Jack Beynon (Ben Johnson); Doc and Carol are then made to participate in a bank robbery which goes as wrong as movie lovers everywhere could expect it to. Doc and Carol have to make their way across Texas to Mexico and safety while being trailed by Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri), a vengeance minded member of the gang.The cast simply couldn't be better in this sexy, slick, violent production; even MacGraw isn't bad as the wife with a loyalty to her man through thick and thin. McQueen once again has an undeniable presence on screen and the viewer can believe that he's going to keep going despite the odds. Johnson is enjoyably slimy, Lettieri scores as a truly rotten creep, and Richard Bright, Jack Dodson, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins, and Roy Jenson all do well in assorted memorable bits. The ever affable Slim Pickens doesn't appear until near the end of the picture, but he helps to close it on a very ingratiating final note.Peckinpah is in very fine form here, creating a milieu where moral considerations often go out the window. Doc isn't necessarily a "good guy", yet we still can't help but root for him, especially when characters like Beynon and Butler are even worse. Just to give people an idea of how sleazy Butler is, he thinks nothing of dallying with vapid, sexpot blonde Fran (Sally Struthers) in front of her weakling husband Harold (Dodson). The many vignettes along the way keep you eagerly watching - Doc is forced to pursue another thief (Bright) to get his own ill gotten money back, for one - but the highlight is undeniably the incredibly tense sequence aboard the garbage truck. Peckinpah once again demonstrates a real flair for the kind of stylized violence he perfected in "The Wild Bunch", with blood spurting and many squibs exploding.People can hardly fail to notice that again the director is not about to go the politically correct route, as a resentful Doc, still not happy about what Carol did with Beynon, slaps her around. Yet, when Doc punches Frans' lights out later, it actually provokes a reaction of relief from the audience because it puts an end to her shrill whining.Overall the film makes for fine entertainment. Even at two hours and three minutes, it's remarkably well paced and tension filled, and it never falters, kicking into gear for a rousing final act. Highly recommended.10 out of 10.