There is a scene in David Twohy’s “A Perfect Getaway” in which, after hearing about some gruesome murders, one of the characters is reminded of the film “Natural Born Killers.” It’s ironic, and most likely intentional, that that film is mentioned because this whole film gives off the same vibe as that one. It also manages to be a little more successful, though not by much.
Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich) are a recently wedded couple who have decided to take their honeymoon on the beautiful islands of Hawaii. While on one of the hiking trails, they meet another couple, Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and Gina (Kiele Sanchez), whom they end up spending most of their time with. Things become unsettling as they hear of a pair of murders that took place on one of the other islands, plus there seems to be a suspicious pair of hitchhikers that are snooping around their campsite. Could the murderers be closer than they think?
“A Perfect Getaway” does what few other thrillers nowadays bother to do, and that is up the suspense every chance it gets. It presents us with several suspicious characters and basically asks us who we think would be capable of committing the terrible murders that we have been told about.
Who could it be? Is it the creepy looking hitchhikers who tried to get a ride from Cliff and Cydney near the beginning of the film? Could it be Gina and her unusual boyfriend Nick, a former black-ops soldier who was first into Iraq? We are told a lot of extra information about Nick such as that he is “hard to kill,” as Gina puts it. This is a fact that wouldn’t be told unless it was going to have some bearing later, and, of course, it does.
The film shifts the focus from suspect to suspect, thinking that we will quickly pass blame from character to character. But obviously we are not going to believe that it is the most suspicious characters. Where would the fun in that be? There is the obligatory moment in the middle of the film where we’re supposed to believe that the murderers have been taken away by the police, but of course, they haven’t.
With such a narrow list of suspects, and too many obvious ones, the identity of the murderers is far too obvious far too soon. Many people had been saying that the twist is really interesting in this film, but it doesn’t really count as a twist if we’re able to figure it out far in advance. When this twist is revealed in the middle of the film, it feels it necessary to go into a montage lasting about ten minutes that explains the back story, but how much information on the murderers do we really need?
The reason behind the murders is as clichéd as the twist itself. We’ve seen it done before, but I won’t say where, for that may give too much away. The reveal itself only comes about because of a slip-up by the murderers, making the confrontation feel a bit forced. It might have been more interesting had the confrontation been allowed to happen in a more natural manner.
There is another moment near the end of the film that feels forced and even randomly put it. One of the characters suddenly finds their conscious completely out of the blue. It seemed completely unnecessary and out of place because there was not build up to it whatsoever with this character showing no signs of remorse at what they had done before.
The ending could have used a lot more originality. There were several different endings that this film could have used that would have been far less clichéd. However, the film is not a total loss due to its interesting use of suspense and its tactic of placing suspicion on every character. While it’s not one of the best thrillers out there, you could easily do worse.
2.5/4 stars.