David Twohy has been associated with some rather notable films, from "The Fugitive" (regarded as one of the best thrillers of the '90s) to well-regarded sci-fi like "The Arrival" and "Pitch Black." In "A Perfect Getaway," he threads his script (which he also directed) with a self-referential attitude toward the craft of screen writing (a heavy-handed nod to the "Scream" trilogy) that is immediately problematic, since, well...this movie exemplifies everything that is WRONG with the modern thriller. From the generic title to the egregious miscasting to the sloppy pacing and awkward transitions, "Getaway" has more in common with a made-for-cable production, circa 1993. Odd couple Steve Zahn (he's a budding Hollywood screenwriter!) and Milla Jovovich (she's a smiling bubblehead!) are celebrating their honeymoon in Hawaii, just as a string of murders are sweeping the island (gasp!); once there, they run afoul two Creepy Hitchhikers (one played by "Grindhouse"'s Marley Shelton) and another young couple played by Timothy Olyphant (he's a creepy war vet with a titanium plate in his head!) and Kiele Sanchez (she smokes dope and guts wild goats!). As a result of Twohy's self-referential gimmickry, "Getaway" consistently defuses its own scant thrills, and fails to muster much suspense; as it goes for Hitchcock with its character-based story machinations (even incorporating an anvil-subtle sense of macabre humor), the director all but admits his desperation in the last act, when a peppermint-tinged flashback sequence (that anticlimactically goes on for far too long) abandons motive and character to whomp the viewer over the head with a succession of increasingly pathetic "twists." While Twohy's script does them absolutely no favors, the cast is simply incapable of elevating the material, in no small part because the performers themselves are so disparate: Zahn, best known for his comedic persona, does well in the film's first half, but when asked to go "dark," becomes a laughable portrait of evil; Jovovich, known mostly for action roles, fails as the starry-eyed suburban naif, but succeeds as a rugged ass-kicker; and Olyphant, a character actor with a spotty track record, is unconvincing as a Forrest Gump-like simpleton nattering away about "screenplay writers." Since the mystery at its core is of little interest (and even less once revealed), "A Perfect Getaway" leaves the viewer plenty of time to ponder how a thriller this pedestrian and trite was deemed worthy of a release by a major studio, even in the midst of one of the worst cinematic summers in recent memory. (Wait, I think I get it now...)