Jack Lambert is an ethics professor who just found a new girlfriend, Gale. However, he finds out that his neighbor, Max, may be an ex-Nazi commander of an concentration camp, Karl Luger, but the news is still unsure of this rumor. Upon finding out that Max intends to move to South America, Jack poisons him, unwilling to let him get away unpunished for his crimes. However, the news reveals that Max was just a cook during World War II, and that the reports just misidentified him for Luger. Out of remorse, Jack breaks up with Gale and marries Max's daughter, single mother Inga. During their voyage to Düsseldorf, Inga confesses that her father was indeed Luger, and that he just forged the fake identity of Max to hide. Jack confesses of killing him, and lands in jail. However, due to a lack of evidence, Jack is freed and he makes up with Gale again.
Harvey Miller's final film, this strange black comedy is a rather uninspired and confusing thought experiment on the ethics of a vigilante taking justice into his own hand, without a trial, yet has too little to offer to carry this premise through. "Getting Away with Murder" has a noble theme, a one about justice being served even if the suspected war criminal in question is now an old, frail man, yet it does so in too many preachy or didactic moments, which are ultimately too dry for a functioning narrative. Dan Aykroyd is good as the ethics professor Jack torn between his dilemma, yet has little to do in the thin screenplay. One bad joke is there, though, the one where the camera, for whatever reason, lingers terribly on the scene of a white dog licking the crotch of Jack, in a moment that just screams "deleted scene". However, one has to hand it to Jack for his way of eliminating the suspected war criminal Max, which has ingenuity: knowing that Max enjoys eating apples from his garden, Jack simply enters the latter's back yard and uses a needle to inject cyanide into the apples on the tree. Another good moment is when Jack finds out that Gale wants to establish contact after his drumming session, and thus narrates: "It makes it a lot easier when someone likes you first. That way they have to come up with an opening line." Unfortunately, after the murder, the film loses all its steam, and just ends up stranded there, not knowing what to do next, and thus the last 40 minutes are just one long empty walk which just goes around in circles of the twist of whether or not Max was a criminal or just someone with a mistaken identity, until the abrupt ending. A small crumb of pleasure is the supporting role of Lily Tomlin, an always competent comedienne who here manages to somewhat salvage her one-note role.
Grade:+
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