THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Season Of The Witch
Amer
Tron: Legacy
Machete
Let Me In
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by David Twohy. Starring Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Steve Zahn, Kiele Sanchez, Chris Hemsworth, Wendy Braun, Travis Willingham and Mercedes Leggett. Thriller, USA, 2009, 96 min.

The shock revelation is a bit of a cheat. But nevertheless writer/director David (PITCH BLACK) Twohy’s thriller does ring a few crafty changes on the ‘stupid tourists abroad’ blueprint as formatted by PARADISE LOST.

The story basically boils down to which of three couples on vacation in Hawaii (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez, Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton) are the Mickey and Mallory styled sociopaths who are murdering their way through the picture postcard islands targeting newlyweds. The NATURAL BORN KILLERS analogy isn’t arbitrary either as scripter Twohy points out such references by making Zahn’s Cliff character a Hollywood screenplay writer whose about to have his first film go into production in Vancouver. Plus there’s a lot of clever-clever talk about script mechanics, referring to story structure and ‘red snapper’ twists (Olyphant’s Nick character is the one who makes that ‘red herring’ mistake, for good reason as it turns out) which does bolster the fun aspects of this sneaky suspenser as the sudden shocks begin, the mutilation commences and the gore starts to flow. Such ‘situational awareness’ – another dialogue-led left-field hint – and changes in certain realities could have come off as too tricky. Yet under Twohy’s sure direction suspicions are shared out with sleight-of-hand slickness so the identities of the crystal meth crazed butchers still elicits some surprise. This is one of those movies where you almost want to watch it again the moment it ends to see if the black-and-white explanation flashbacks actually do follow through. True, Twohy still falls back on that old standby of the heroine not killing the baddie once and for all when she has the chance so they can rise again to menace anew (the reason why TAKEN was so good because Liam Neeson didn’t mess around and just shot everyone). And what are the chances you’d stumble into a group of medical students in the jungle who could instantly diagnose a drug-induced condition? Not that it matters in the overall schema of coded arrhythmic switches in empathy. And the spectacular scenery helps (it was mainly shot in Puerto Rico with CGI Hawaii augmentation by the way) to paper over such minor cracks in the tight scenario. Zahn is always great value and both he and Timothy Olyphant really give this dark, most dangerous game, a central core of ruthlessness, believability and macho vulnerability.

A PERFECT GETAWAY (important to note it’s A not THE) isn’t quite that perfect but as near as arguable considering everything that could have gone so wrong here but didn’t.

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2009
__________________________________________________________