A Perfect Getaway - C+

A recently married couple (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are on their Hawaii honeymoon when they learn another newlywed couple has been murdered nearby. They decide to continue with their hike down a remote trail and meet 2 other couples, both filmed and written as suspiciously as possible. Zahn plays a mildly successful screenwriter and this fact allows writer-director David Twohy to openly address the fundamentals of plotting a movie. Twohy breaks many screenwriting rules throughout the first 2 acts, but he runs out of ideas for the third.

The huge plot twist is fairly easy to spot, especially if you've seen (spoiler link) this, but the dialogue alternates between too self-referential and too familiar. And none of the actors really pop off the screen. Timothy Olyphant comes closest as an Iraqi war veteran who likes to rough it in the wild. Zahn and Jovovich are awkward together and their back-and-forth dialogue is as forced as it gets. The Hawaiian scenery is unbelievably beautiful, definitely the best thing in the film. The first 2 acts work pretty well - especially for film dorks - and the whole film probably works for super-fans of the thriller genre. But if your whole film relies on a plot twist, you never really had much of a film to begin with. C+