"A Perfect Getaway" (2009) - Movie Review

Do a favour for me right now? Do not read this review further. Nope. Did not you see I am asking not to read? As Kramer says in “Seinfeld”, you are one tenacious little monkey, aren’t you? Anyway, enough of the game but the reason I said that is because to suggest watching “A Perfect Getaway” without having much of a clue. The so called marketing promotion for any film ruins the best for a movie goer which is entering the halls of the theatre and seeing everything for first time. In that aspect “A Perfect Getaway” would serve really good. To be fair, I did predicted the suspense but that is due to the subconsciously trained ninja fighting seasoned movie goer (yes my mind works in mysterious ways) could not watch it silently.

In the film a character mentions how easily we say things to the people we just met in a vacation. May be it is due to the comfort factor that the people who can afford and sane enough to get in the same situation as them would be good people. Not essentially in this film wherein the perfectly settled newly married couple Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milo Jovovich) are constantly in fear of two other couples they meet in their honeymoon trip to Hawaii. One is the outright rough and creepy couple Kale (Chris Hemsworth) and Cleo (Marley Shelton) and the other is Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and Gina (Kiele Sanchez). Of which Nick and Gina seem to be better of the worst, only for time being. The fear is due to the news that a newly wed couple got killed in Honolulu where Cliff and Cydney along with other couples were a day before and the suspects are also a couple. Lets leave it at that and I will talk about the film without going much further into the plot.

Written and directed by David Twohy, this film for once places characters and gives time to behave and understand in a thriller/suspense/slasher category. Cliff and Cydney for example are newlyweds having a prospective life ahead. They are as such is the audience’s mind. Both come from a secure place of livelihood and the comfort of that existence has shunned from the danger of the common placed nature. Nick and Gina on the other hand are rough and tough. The conversation between Nick and Cliff is not alone fearful but funny. Nick after learning Cliff a screenwriter begins to brag about his covert op in armed forces to a possible movie deal.

Timothy Olyphant has a gifted face wherein he can pass both as a roughed up nice guy and a freaked out bully simultaneously. Here he rattles the cages of this couple. Instead of setting to have jitters of scary situations, the story has conversations. Gina and Cydney are women being women. As Cliff and Cydney tag along with this couple and slowly do they crank up the creep-o-meter. At one instance Cliff tells Cydney that Gina and Nick could be killers and they have absolutely no idea about them. Cydney details about the life history of Gina and tells girls talk. In any other film of this nature, I could not possibly see a serious doubt turn into a casual fact.

“A Perfect Getway” is mainly keeps it head straight to the characters. The idea of a vacation turned bad is not an Einstein’s invention but welcoming it with some really good dialogues and characters who are not talking heads makes it a film of some validity. And when the revealing suspense arrives, the targets are actual plausible targets with some fight built up to them. They are scary victims and rather convincing fighters.

The location is gorgeous and the bystanders in this film for once are intelligent and sensible. Though their fate is not good, this might those rare film which respects its side characters with some detail and credibility. I almost missed “A Perfect Getaway” but couple of good reviews and with Steve Zahn who takes good (and odd) scripts, I checked this out and I am glad I did. In strange places we try to be friendly and still stay with ourselves most of the time. The friends we make are cautious but unavoidable. You do not want a bad moment and thus try to keep the mood upbeat. That fear is always there and in this film they play it to their advantage and give a believable thriller.