Getaway, The (1972)

The Getaway (1972), directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Steve McQueen is doing hard time in a Texas prison. His only way out is to do a bank job for a corrupt parole officer. He doesn't get to pick his own crew and it goes badly: one dead guard, one dead robber.

That's the first 40 minutes. The rest is about surviving the aftermath. It has many good moments and exciting chase and shootout scenes, but the pacing is a bit off. We have way too much time with the surviving heist doofus, still after the money, alternately terrorizing a veterinarian and bedding his willing wife (Sally Struthers).

McQueen is excellent at showing the shock of being outside again, and the time needed to get to know his wife. Ali MacGraw is both wife and partner and seems loyal, but she had to do some things to get him out and is now compromised. In the end it's a love story. McQueen can't do what DeNiro does in Heat: walk away.

The wikipedia has details on the complicated production history. Screenplay by Walter Hill from a Jim Thompson novel, remade in 1994.

Available on an economical Blu-ray ($7.99 recently). Score by Quincy Jones, although Peckinpah wanted the original one by Jerry Fielding. It's included as an isolated score on the disc, but coverage is sometimes spotty.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Getaway211.JPG