The Getaway (1972)

Released in 1972 and based on Jim Thompson's 1958 novel of the same name, The Getaway arrived at a particular sweet spot in American cinema, when studios were willing to hand relatively serious money and creative latitude to directors with a taste for violence, moral ambiguity, and stories that refused tidy resolutions. The screenplay was adapted by Walter Hill, early in his career, and the production brought together three separate companies: Foster-Brower Productions, First Artists, and Solar Productions, the last of which was Steve McQueen's own outfit. That McQueen had his own production company involved tells you something about his level of investment in the project, and about the clout he carried in Hollywood at the time. The story concerns a career criminal, Doc McCoy, who secures his release from a Texas prison with his wife's help, only for the heist that follows to unravel in predictably bloody fashion, leaving the pair to run hard for the Mexican border with several very motivated people behind them.

Sam Peckinpah was, by 1972, already the director of The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971), films that had established him as one of the most distinctive and divisive voices in American cinema. His preoccupations, honour among criminals, the mythology of violence, loyalty tested to breaking point, fit Thompson's source material like a glove. Peckinpah brought his usual eye for sun-baked, dusty Americana and his willingness to let scenes breathe past the point of comfort, which gives the film a texture that more polished but unremarkable studio thrillers of the era simply do not have. The production shot on location across Texas, lending the film a gritty, lived-in quality that backlot work could never have replicated.

The cast is where things get genuinely interesting. McQueen, already well established as one of the defining screen presences of his generation (you can see that particular brand of coiled cool in Bullitt and, going back further, in The Magnificent Seven), plays Doc McCoy with characteristic economy: not much wasted movement, not many wasted words. Ali MacGraw takes the role of Carol McCoy, his wife and reluctant accomplice. The pair had begun a relationship during production, which may or may not account for the particular charge between them on screen. Ben Johnson, a Peckinpah regular and a performer who always brought something weathered and credible to whatever he was in, appears as Jack Benyon, the politician who sets the whole dangerous machine in motion. Al Lettieri, whose career was defined by a string of genuinely unsettling villains in this period, plays Rudy Butler, the rival criminal on the McCoys' tail, and he is a considerable presence. Sally Struthers rounds out the principal cast, in a role that provides some of the film's more uncomfortable comic textures. Crime fans looking for another film that puts moral complexity front and centre might also find A Bittersweet Life worth their time, as another example of a genre piece where loyalty and betrayal do most of the heavy lifting.

The Getaway (1972) is often sold on the strength of its car chase, one of the first truly gritty, high-speed pursuits in American cinema, but let’s be honest: it’s not great. It’s long, bumpy, and more about endurance than excitement, filmed with a raw, almost documentary feel that’s impressive for its time but doesn’t deliver the white-knuckle thrills you might expect. That said, the film as a whole holds up surprisingly well as a lean, mean heist thriller anchored by strong performances and Sam Peckinpah’s signature toughness. Steve McQueen is effortlessly cool as Doc McCoy, a career criminal double-crossed after a prison break and a meticulously planned robbery gone wrong. Ali MacGraw (Peckinpah’s real-life partner at the time) plays his wife Carol, caught between loyalty and survival. Their chemistry is palpable, even if the script sometimes reduces her to damsel-in-distress mode. The tension builds steadily, the dialogue is sharp, and the moral ambiguity of the characters adds depth beyond your standard crime flick. It’s not flashy or over-the-top. Just hard-edged, suspenseful, and grounded in a world where trust is currency and everyone has a price. The desert landscapes, the seedy motels, the constant paranoia, all classic Peckinpah atmosphere. The car chase is more “historically notable” than thrilling. Overall it’s a solid, stylish crime drama with grit, charisma, and a sense of fatalism that lingers.

For me, that sense of fatalism is really what makes The Getaway stick around in the memory longer than you might expect from a film that is, on paper, a fairly straightforward crime chase picture. Peckinpah never lets you fully root for Doc and Carol without also reminding you what they are and what they have done, and that refusal to let the audience entirely off the hook is a quality that separates his better work from the competition. It is the kind of film that rewards a second watch, not because you missed anything, but because you notice how quietly the atmosphere is doing the work that lesser films would outsource to louder action sequences. Not a masterpiece, but very much a film made by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Sometimes that is more than enough.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1972  | Watched: 2025-10-10

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Steve McQueen: The Magnificent Seven (1960) · Bullitt (1968)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)