A Perfect Getaway

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A Perfect Getaway has the bones of a decent thriller, until it comes down with a serious dose of the M. Night Shyamalan's. Up until the dreadful twist, however, it's a fun and tense movie with some nice performances.

Honeymooners Cliff (Zahn) and Cydney (Jovovich) are in Hawaii making their way to a beautiful secluded beach. After a tense run in with two white trash hitchhikers, they meet Nick (Olyphant) and Gina (Sanchez) and join them on the trek to the little paradise. However, when news breaks that a newly married couple were murdered on another island and two murderers are on the loose, Cliff and Cydney begin to suspect their companions. Or is the white trash couple they left in the road? Or is it...

A Perfect Getaway is an enjoyable slow-burner with lots of nods and winks to the danger that's to come: the guy in the store who gives Zahn a looooong look; the aggressive hitchhikers; the paper with the headline 'Couple Butchered'; Timothy Olyphant; Zahn reassuring a nervous Jovovich with the famous last words "nothing happens in Hawaii". Okay, so this isn't going to be a nice honeymoon - but there's more: Zahn's screenwriter discusses 'red herrings' and 'Act II twists' with Olyphant's Iraq vet. All this is fun and writer-director Twohy (Pitch Black, The Chronicles Of Riddick) makes a decent job of disguising his killers until the reveal. The reveal, however, doesn't work. Worse still, it doesn't make sense. A good twist always stands up to repeated viewings – Bladerunner, Being There, The Sixth Sense, Fight Club - but A Perfect Getaway won't. Twohy's twist makes a mockery of his characters and story.

The performances are pretty decent, though. Zahn has the everyman shtick down and even manages to give producers a calling card for action movies roles in the future, a genre you wouldn't have associated with him until now. Olyphant is always reliable and plays around with the 'is he?/he's not/but is he?' perfectly here.