Movies With Butter

Ethan Hawke is an ex-getaway driver tear-assing through Sofia, Bulgaria to rescue his kidnapped wife (Rebecca Budig) from a cyber villain who appears to him as a disembodied voice (Jon Voight). As Voight barks commands in his campiest Hanz&Franz, Selena Gomez infiltrates the car (her car, recently stolen), later out-sleuthing Hawke with a spate of iPad apps that slowly hack away at the villain’s agenda and our credulity as well. These characters bang like pinballs inside the incomprehensible Bulgarian game board and despite having mostly evident motivations, can’t inspire more human interest that a shiny metal ball. Which is primarily what Hawkes resembles, driving warp speed in a gunmetal grey Shelby Super Snake, outfitted mightily with horse power and the unimaginative filmmakers equivalency for horse power: surveillance cameras. It’s these low-fi eyeballs planted strategically around the car that make it possible for director Courtney Solomon (2000’s Dungeons and Dragons) to cut their races to ribbons. It’s as if the director saw a Paul Greengrass fight and figured excitement is the result of confusion and loud noises. The characters create one public disturbance after another, banging into cop cars, driving through parks, blasting through garage walls, all while trying to figure out why they’re on this crash course to begin with. You’ll likely wonder the same. The film implies a sequel, but rides this pointless and unpleasant don't bare repeating.

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