The Getaway (1972)
★★★½ — The Getaway (1972)
Sam Peckinpah came to The Getaway fresh from Straw Dogs (1971) and riding the critical wave still trailing behind The Wild Bunch (1969), making this his most commercially minded picture to date, and by some distance his biggest box office success. The screenplay, by Walter Hill in his feature-writing debut, adapts Jim Thompson's 1958 crime novel, a lean and morally pitiless piece of pulp fiction that Hill streamlined considerably for the screen. Steve McQueen produced through his own Solar Productions and handpicked Peckinpah for the job, a pairing of two notoriously difficult personalities that generated as much friction off-camera as tension on it. MacGraw, then married to producer Robert Evans, began an affair with McQueen during the shoot, a tabloid story that overshadowed the film's release in late 1972. It was remade in 1994 with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
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.
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)
