AllMovie

To succeed at making a black comedy about a truly repulsive subject, as Getting Away With Murder does about a Nazi monster, requires enormous talent on the level of say, Billy Wilder. Black comedy is always difficult to pull off, but the more serious the subject, the more difficult; any misstep, no matter how small, can derail the whole enterprise. Murder is a black comedy which is made of practically nothing but missteps. Place most of the blame on Harvey Miller, who both penned and helmed this excruciatingly unfunny comedy. There's very little approaching wit to be found here; there's very little even approaching competence. What there is a lot of, however, is repetition. Miller's use of voice-over lets us in on the supposedly inner workings of the main character, but he also goes on to show us everything we've already been told. Miller's direction is sluggish, at best, which is especially damaging to leading man Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd's comic charm is difficult to capture in a full-length film, and Miller doesn't have a clue how to use him here, with the result that the actor just sinks deeper and deeper as the film goes along. Jack Lemmon and Lily Tomlin come off at least a little better, but neither one is doing work that does them proud. Even fans of its stars will want to miss Getting Away With Murder.