Review of A Perfect Getaway (2009) by Chads — 06 Aug 2009

Georgia was the perfect getaway for the men in John Boorman's "Deliverance", or so they thought, as the naive suburbanites first set down their canoes on the Chattoga River. Back in the shanty town, the moviegoer sees a class struggle in the making when they first meet the local residents.

But it's just a matter of time before Bobby(Ned Beatty), the surly one, is put in his place. The city slicker soon rues the moment he tells a hillbilly, "I like your hat." In "A Perfect Getaway", the outsiders seek their deliverance from the Kalalau Trail on the island of Kauai.

This time it's newlyweds(played by Steve Zahn and Milla Jonovich), a screenwriter and his blushing bride who go rural, and encounter, not just the islanders, but stateside couples of a lesser pedigree, which creates the same class struggle found in the Boorman film.

Seemingly out of their elements, Cliff and Cydney make the classic mistake of befriending the wrong people, a thriller staple, but the filmmaker never goes on automatic pilot; he composes with soft focus photography to give a sense of ambiguity at key moments whenever both couples are within the same frame.

Whereas in "Deliverance", the person of perceived lower class asserts his dominance by violating Bobby("squeal like a pig") in the woods, therefore transforming class struggle into class warfare: Gina(Kiele Sanchez), a Georgian just like the hicks in the Boorman film, intimidates Cliff and Cydney when the country woman processes a goat into food, where she violates the animal(that Nick, played by Timothy Olyphant, had slain) with her hands for its innards.

Like a natural born killer, she shows no remorse. But are Cliff and Cydney really intimidated? Is there a social hierarchy? In "A Perfect Getaway", the screenwriter and his wife, unlike the four men in the 1972 film starring Burt Reynolds, get their deliverance not just from the primitive setting, but from each other, as well.