We've all want to jump into a car, preferably a car you waved down in the streets and said, "Police emergency, gimme your damn car, goddammit!" and head off down the road crashing into wayward dustbins and fruit stalls. Before embarking on a high speed chase across dust tracks, concrete roads, tarmac'd race tracks, children's playgrounds. Anything. Smashing up all that gets in your path, including the very old and the very young - especially the very old and the very young - with a flagrant disregard for the rules of the road and the safety of others. Who wouldn't?
The problem is you'd either be arrested or die. So we live out those fantasies by watching wheel-screeching, metal-grinding, whip-lash inducing, speed-loving car chases. Chases that roar along a busy city highway like Jeremy Clarkson on methamphetamines and a death wish, riding the German autobahn in a stolen F1 car with a space rocket engine. So prepare for the unmistakeable crunch of metal on metal and the thrill of the chase. Pile ups and break-neck speeds guaranteed. Beeep!
The Blues Brothers
"It's hundred and six miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses." "Hit it."And with that legendary exchange an awesome car-wreck of a car chase begins. If you were going to be in a high speed chase, you could do worse than these two for company. In a perfect world we'd all look and act like them. Watch this while wearing your Wayfarers and drinking a beer. And as an aside, why did we all used to think Dan Aykroyd was fat?
The French Connection
A brilliantly executed, taut, thrilling jaunt, which sees The Hackman racing alongside a subway train, which has a brutal, sharp realism to it. Mainly because it was shot without the city knowing and Gene Hackman as Popeye brings a menacing immediacy to the screen like he's going to drive out the TV and screech about your living room and run over your cat. Often considered the greatest car chase in film history, but they've not seen footage of me filmed on my buddy's camera phone down the local fairground going AWOL on the bumper cars. If you want to see somebody else taking advantage of a city in a car without the authority's knowledge, see C'etait un rendez-vous below.
The Matrix Reloaded
Filmed on a budget of millions, this is not what you call cinematic realism, but it's still freaking cool. It's around 17 minutes long in its totality (this is the abridged version), and it involves Casper the Unfriendly Rasta and his twin. If there's one thing that makes a good chase, it's carnage in bullet-time. Speed is good, but there's nothing like watching a highway getting torn to shreds with cars being bounced on like a dream world version of classic arcade game Frogger. And look at the bullet holes in that silver car Trinity's driving, like a Swiss cheese with wheels.
Ronin
And in the red corner, challenging The French Connection for Greatest. Car Chase. EVER! is the spurned samurai, the wandering warrior...RONIN! This was filmed at actual speeds, no CGI and, like all the best chases, includes the car going the wrong way. Must try that before I die, or perhaps just before I die as a giant lorry comes hurtling towards me and crushes me like an impounded car. De Niro drives like a man getting his pregnant wife to hospital while simultaneously being late for work. That's some skills. The speed makes your eyes water and your heart skip a beat. Frankenhiemer is so skilled a director he could film a kid's merry-go-round and make you think you were watching a space race at light speed, filmed on the moons of Jupiter.
C'etait un rendez-vous (It was a date)
No one's actually chasing him but this is a knuckle-whitening drive. This was filmed in 1976 by Frenchman Claude Lelouch, who also does the driving. He mounted a camera onto the front of a Mercedes 450SEL with a 6.9-litre V8 engine, which was later overdubbed with the noise of a Ferrari. Then took the car for a spin around the streets of Paris early one summer morning. Filmed in one take at speeds of up to 135mph it's an impressive sequence, and goes to show you what some guys will do to impress the ladeez and meet their date on time. Personally I'd have got a cab.
The Bourne Identity
Car chases in a battered mini have that extra thrill because minis are so small it's like taking a blunt pen-knife to a nuclear war. No chance really, but then you're not Jason Bourne are you? Mr Bourne takes the little car down side streets twisting and turning like a boxer throwing punches, launching the car down a stairway like he was ski jumping at the Winter Olympics. Having amnesia means you just don't give a sh#t.
The Dark Knight
When all else fails, use a bazooka. That's a golden rule and one we'd all do well to remember. But doing that you will attract the attention of the cubist tank that is the Tumbler, which looks like something Picasso may've shat out after a particularly heavy night on the Guinness.
Batman uses it to tear through Gotham after a chase so wired I feel jittery after watching it. Having it give birth to the Batpod before exploding is the sort of wet-dream many fanboys wake up in the night with soiled sheets over. I'd like to own the Tumbler, no problem with traffic jams, you'd just bunny hop them and then crash through the rest like they were made from an old man's fragile bones. And anyway, if the cops got you, self-destruct the thing then continue on the Batpod launching missiles at anything that got in your way. Didn't expect that did they. F#ckers.
Bullitt
One of the all time classics. Steve McQueen is so cool the Arctic was formed when the sweat from his brow cooled. I think Paul Newman was responsible for the Antarctica. The hills of San Francisco are the back drop to this, with the cars reaching speeds of up to 110mph as they fly over those hill-tops like salmon swimming upstream. Filmed from a driver's point-of-view to give us put you behind the wheel, we also get to see the same shot from multiple angles so look out for a recurring VW beetle. For around 10 minutes of film they shot for 3 weeks. It's cooler than a frozen cucumber ice-bathing on Pluto.
Quantum of Solace
I thought this was a great Bond movie and it opens with this intense chase through a tunnel that gripped me like a monkey wrench wrapped in a python. You can feel every collision and bump juddering through your body, rattling your teeth, so you start the movie feeling as dazed and confused as the drivers of those cars tumbling down the rock face. Its frantic action doesn't quite give the viewer a quantum of solace, but when the chase was over though, I did feel a neutrino of relief.
Who Am I?
This chase has all the manic, discordant, but well executed beauty of a Jackie Chan fight scene, mainly because it involves Jackie Chan. Off he goes like a kung-fu clown utilising whatever comes to hand to fend off those nasty tough guys on his tail. In classic movie chase style he goes down some steps, through a crowded market place; knocking over flowers, setting off balloons, and...wait for it....wait...BANG! Into a fruit and veg stall - ticking all the boxes required while seemingly changing gears with his nutsack. What a legend. And as if this wasn't enough to keep a smile on your face he does a film first (and probably last) of fending off the bad guys with gravel. Gravel! Highly, thoroughly, enjoyable.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Epic 20 minute car chase that rattles along like a mobile junk yard. The tension builds like a high speed pursuit on Cops and by the time the final collision comes, the audience is so excited its shot their load like a wax dart. If a post-apocalyptic world is this much fun, then bring on the destruction of our species.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
From helicopter to truck. Trucks cause maximum destruction, we've seen their potency in Matrix Reloaded and The Dark Knight. Nobody wants to f#ck with a ten ton truck hurtling towards them. Well, maybe there's one exception. If you were a reprogrammed android assassin sent back in time by the future saviour of mankind and leader of the resistance to save his younger self from death at the hands of a mimetic polyalloy who can liquefy at will who was itself sent back by machines who are hellbent on destroying the human race...then, and only then, will you not give a f#ck. You will instead throw yourself onto said truck and effectively lift it over onto its side like it was made from the potent, yet unsubstantial air that wafts out of Jeremy Clarkson's mouth.
The Cannonball Run
This whole movie is one long car chase. And a film that features Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Chan, Peter Fonda and Captain Chaos in an illegal cross country race made in the 70s like a pr0n film for petrol heads. Stop it. What modern equivalent do we have to rival this piece of frivolous ensemble genius? Rat Race, with a post psycho-analysed John Cleese who's about as funny as someone keying your car with your own teeth.
Death Proof
People mock this movie, and hate it. But you've got to love this car chase. Kurt Russell's scarred stuntman revs it up in his 1970s Dodge Charger while the girls in their 1970s Dodge Challenger are playing a little game called Ship's Mast. Where real-life stunt woman Zoe Bell ties herself onto the hood of the car with two belts while travelling at high speed, something you should definitely try at home. A chase ensures and then the tables turn, the hunter Kurt becomes the hunted.
Gone in 60 Seconds
This movie has an epic 34 minute chase and 93 cars were completely destroyed making it. Not even an army of angry Transformers whose mothers had just been insulted and were getting ratty because they hadn't had their oil supper could do that in 34 minutes. But that's what happens when you pursue a car thief across 5 cities. Here's part of that marathon sesh.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
It starts with Indy on a horse and sees with leaping onto the side of a moving vehicle. Go Indy! This is the sort of scene you watch as a kid that makes you so excited you look at your palms after it's passed and they're dripping with sweat and blood from the intensity with which you gripped them. The sort of scene you'd watch and then leap up and start bounding about the living room from sofa to chair until you fell over and cracked your skull open. Which is the only thing that would get you to stop.
To Live and Die in L.A.
This is another William Friedkin movie, along with The French Connection. The man liked a good car chase, and who can blame him. If I could get a bunch of soulless movie execs to hand me a load of money so I could get a load of stunt drivers to drive about like a bunch of maniacs and put it all on film, I would. This is a breathtakingly exciting chase that ends, like Ronin, with the car going the wrong way down a congested freeway, making for an insane and intense ride. You might find yourself leaping up in barely contained emotion screaming, "LOOOOOOOK OOOOOOUT!" Or that might just be me.
The Rock
Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, those two guys could make an ear-splitting, city destroying explosion out of a Care Bears love-in. So you'd think that'd be capable of doing a pretty good car chase. And you'd be right. This one sees Nic Cage, in one of his last good movies, reprimanding a car, "FBI!", and heading off after everyone's favourite silve-fox Sean Connery. Like Bullit it's set in San Francisco, but couldn't be further from in style. It's bold. It's brash. It has explosions. It has corny one liners. It just doesn't give a f#ck. Which is what makes it so enjoyable.
The Seven-Ups
We all love a renegade policeman and we all love Roy "SHAAAARK" Scheider, God rest his soul. Produced by the same guy, Philip D'Antoni, who was responsible for Bullitt and The French Connection, we're in good company for car chases. Like the two previously mentioned movies legendary stuntman Bill Hickman stepped up to the plate to create this chase sequence, and my God, it's a good 'un. It takes place in Upper Manhattan, and follows Bullitt's route of cars flying over bumps at ridiculous speeds, with ear-deafening screeching. No music makes this even more intense and gritty. Hang on to your hats, you're in for a refreshing ride.
Beverley Hills Cop
This is a cheery car chase. Look at Eddie, aka Axel Foley, he's hanging onto the back of a truck by those chains and being thrown about everywhere while boxes of stolen Lucky Strikes spill onto the streets of Detroit. And that electro-pop classic Neutron Dance by The Pointer Sisters tantalises the ear-drums. Ha! Jollity all round! It's a fantastic way to begin a movie, put the fun pedal to the metal! Back when Mr Murphy could make a decent movie, until he started putting on fat suits and talking to f#cking animals nearly, single-handedly, destroying comedy as we know it. Eddie Murphy! F#ck you!
Taxi
The French original by Luc Besson, not the remake, which is a cheap putain! French hip-hop on the stereo, Peugeots as the cars, the streets of Marseille as a backdrop. It has a sense of the mischievousness of The Italian Job, driving through a city going places you shouldn't. In fact, watching it, it seems to have cobbled together elements of lots of classic chases, the hill-jumps from Bullitt, the parallel bridge driving from The French Connection, the crazy bridge jumping of Smokey and the Bandit. It's like a little homage to cinematic car chases. Trés bon.
The Italian Job
Again this is the original which is a far superior movie to the remake, which is still fun but this is a classic. If you love mini-coopers you'll love this movie, and the soundtrack makes you want to run off and go plan a heist. And because the cars are so little, they can drive through shopping centres, along pavements, promenades, weddings ("Good luck!") wherever the hell they like. And by God they do. It's as cheeky as one legged cockney Pearly King flogging some stolen car stereos down the local market with Dick Van Dyke tap-dancing on his shoulders like a little monkey.
Smokey and the Bandit
You've got to love the bandit for his burn outs and ridiculous skids. Running rings around the police like a mischievous automobile imp. An admirable thing and an influence on everything from Death Proof to Knight Rider to Dukes of Hazard to anyone who's fled the police after they've ram-raided the local off-license or skipped a red-light.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
When I said that there was only one exception to not giving a f#ck when a truck was hurtling towards them, I lied. There's one other exception. And that's a binary speaking anti-terminator terminator that has an endoskeleton covered with a polymimetic liquid metal alloy and an arsenal of weapons that includes flamethrowers, caustic shells, cluster guns and a nano-disrupter - then you could probably shrug off a fire engine hurtling towards you being driven by The Governator. This is destruction on a mass scale as a huge industrial crane the T-X drives strikes buildings and smashes them into smithereens, destroying them like they were made from despondent whimsy and the hopes of fairies. It's empowering to watch.
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