Nic is quoted repeatedly in a movie that opened last week. (In fact, he´s quoted everywhere: in TV shows, in novels, in songs...)

Ever since Bruce Willis discovered he should be pushing up daisies at the end of The Sixth Sense, it's as if every Hollywood thriller is required to have some ****amamie twist.

More often than not, this last-act revelation is so contrived that it undermines everything that's preceded it, causing the movie to collapse into an unsightly heap.

That A Perfect Getaway comes with a surprise twist is itself no surprise - it's even part of the hey-let's-give-the-ending-away marketing campaign.

What is surprising about this effective little thriller is how cleverly writer-director David Twohy toys with the conventions of the genre as they exist today.

And whereas so many movies stop dead in their tracks upon the arrival of that twist, A Perfect Getaway actually picks up momentum.

As the writer and/or director of such cult faves as Warlock, The Arrival and Pitch Black, Twohy already has a reputation for making movies that are more engaging than their lowly trappings would suggest.

(Alas, he couldn't save Waterworld with a rewrite, but he's a screenwriter, not a miracle worker.)

Here, he gets great mileage out of an unpromising premise about honeymooners whose Hawaiian holiday turns deadly.

Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich) are disturbed to hear that another pair of tourists has been murdered on a neighbouring island. Since a man and a woman are the prime suspects, they're understandably suspicious about two other couples they meet while hiking to a remote beach on the coast of Kauai. Their paranoia is fuelled by the sometimes strange behaviour of the two alpha males in question: garrulous Iraq war vet Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and thuggish ex-con Kale (Chris Hemsworth).

The fact that Cliff is a screenwriter allows for plenty of self-reflexive exchanges about how such stories are supposed to unfold. Nick thinks Nicolas Cage would be perfect to play him if Cliff ever turns this adventure into a movie. One conversation includes a reference to Natural Born Killers, and when Nick warns of "lots of twists and turns ahead," you know he's not talking about the trail.

It's also not the only time that A Perfect Getaway teeters on the edge of self-parody. Moreover, some of Twohy's methods of misdirection are less elegant than others. Problems that perennially face the makers of modern thrillers - like how not to call attention to soon-to-be-crucial information and what to do with characters' pesky cellphones - occasionally stymie him, too.

But Twohy comes through with flying colours when the revelations that would have usually caused a last-act collapse instead yield a finale that's remarkable for both its breakneck speed and its Hitch****ian virtuosity.

Even those viewers who saw the big surprise coming will feel impressed, exhilarated and not a little grateful (in other words, the opposite of what they felt at the end of every other movie by M. Night Shyamalan).

Smart, suspenseful yet aware of its own silliness, A Perfect Getaway outwits and outpaces most of this summer's more bloated offerings.A Perfect Getaway

(out of 4)

Starring Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich and Timothy Olyphant. Directed by David Twohy. 96 minutes. At major theatres. 14A

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/2009/08/a-perfect-getaway-2-12-stars.html

-- Edited by mara on Sunday 9th of August 2009 08:08:32 AM