A Perfect Getaway: Cliff (Steve Zahn)

Comments for death : A Perfect Getaway: Cliff (Steve Zahn).

Granted I didn't see the movie, but I remember seeing the trailer with my girlfriend. Ironically while watching the trailer she commented about the roles Milla Jovovich plays and how her character was probably a part of the murderous couple. Guess those are the breaks. Great writeup by the way.

Yeah, trailers often spoil things like that as they are so unsubtle.

This movie tricks you by telling you there is going to be a big twist, but then showing the two killers in private in scenes that make it impossible for them to be the culprits without it being very unfair to the audience. So, in a sense, the real twist is the way the story "cheats" the audience in a way where you don't feel annoyed

By the way, if you like (or don't like the writeups) it would be great if you could take a minute to register on the forums. Once you do that you can rate all the deaths and writeups. This was a feature loads of people asked us for, but once we added it hardly anybody bothers to use it...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2009 08:31PM by old bluffer.

Was the sniper not credited? He's the killer, not Milla.

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No idea who the sniper was - but given he was a non-character and Cydney knew with absolute certainty that she'd handed her lover a death sentence by speaking out, I thought I'd give her the credit.

Fair enough.

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Movie Deaths Gallery: [smg.photobucket.com]
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Watch those scenes again. I felt the same way too, but looking at the private moments and conversations between Cliff and Cyndi again, I saw what the film was going for.

Cliff never once says that Nick and Gina could be the perpetrators. He says things like "They could be the ones". It's ambiguous, and brilliant, because the audience's preconceived notion is, obviously, that Cliff is afraid they are the criminals. But looking at these scenes from the knowledge that Cliff is Rocky, Cliff could just as easily mean (and likely does) that "These two could be the ones who figure us out" or "these two could be our next victims". He looks for pictures online from his phone not to see if he can tell if Nick and Gina are the murderers, but if the images are sufficient to mark he and Cyndi as the actual culprits. The dialog doesn't set up our expectations by lying, but plays with the expectations that are already there. The screenwriters know the audience will interpret the dialog that way, because that's the default paradigm of thrillers. It's a movie that needs to be seen twice and reexamined. It provides new experiences each time.