Ten Deep 09.24.09: Car Chases

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 09.24.2009

Since I can't drive, I'm a little short on motoring metaphors to use in this column introduction, so instead I'll just promise some crash-bang-wallop action and some videos for your delectation. Come on in!





Welcome to week 48 of 'Ten Deep'! This week we're coming to you live from London town, but due to the time constraints of a business trip, let's delve right into some:

Reactions and interactions

A pretty amenable and agreeable set of comments last week, perhaps largely due to the fact that there aren't exactly a lot of great threequels in cinema history. Of course, there were the usual array of buffoons who hadn't actually read the column and clamored for Rocky III, and it never fails to amuse me how many people seem to simply skim the list and look for things to moan about. the danger stranger reckons I should give in and abandon the whole "golden rule" concept, but then who would I humiliate on a weekly basis?

Maybe duh, who returns on his quest to convince the world that Babe: Pig in the City deserved to be on my best sequels list from a fortnight ago. Give it up, lad, no one who's seen that film would agree with you.

Surprising the number of people who seemed on my side regarding Die Hard With a Vengeance, since I figured that one might have caused a little consternation, but apparently I'm winning you over. Or something less vainglorious.

Elsewhere there were a number of random suggestions, encompassing everything from Trancers 3 (Kristopowitz, was that you?) to Police Academy 3 to, weirdly, Superman III which I have to hope was tongue-in-cheek.

A couple of suggestions of Goldfinger, which I ummed and aahed about including, but decided against in the end since it's not particularly a direct threequel. That's definitely up in the air for debate though and the more I dwell on it, the more I think it was a bad idea for me to leave it out.

Jwestmoreland wonders why he would want to watch a sequel that might ruin a great movie. That's an… odd way of looking at it, and you're depriving yourself of a number of quality films, although I can see the twisted logic behind that.

clint wants a "best westerns" column. Check the archives, Lucas did a five-part column on that very subject several months back, as his swansong in charge of 'Ten Deep'.

Flyin' Brian compares Michael Sheard to Christopher Lee. Controversial, or warranted? Place bets now!

An error highlighted by Twitch, Back to the Future III did indeed feature a hoverboard, fair play on that gaffe on my part.

Finally, a slice of self-loathing from Matt:

"I saw Mission Impossible 3 at #10 and immediately lost all credibility…"

Oh poor chap, don't worry, you didn't lose all your credibility… unless you were attempting to decry my own alleged lack of credibility, in which case, well, your comment kind of speaks for itself.

Moving on!

This week's topic is one of my YouTube-sponsored columns due to the fact I have less time to write than usual, so it'll give us an excuse to watch a few hair-raising videos. The car chase is a staple of action cinema, as clichéd as the best of them but when it's done right, still damn entertaining to watch. A good car chase requires a combination of suspense and set-pieces, and this week's entrants have those in abundance, and I shouldn't really have to explain the entry criteria here, although I will be considering context within the greater scope of the film, hence some golden rule inclusions where I could otherwise have just caught them on YouTube. Anyway, let's get into gear and let's get this moving.

As always, there's one golden rule: if I haven't seen it, it's not allowed on the list.

This week's golden rule notable omissions: Gone in 60 Seconds, Smokey and the Bandit, Thunder Road, To Live and Die in L.A.





[Unfortunately my image editor has packed up, hence the wrong color of the banner and the absence of images throughout. Apologies! Thank goodness for the videos eh…]


Honorable mention: The Bourne Identity/Supremacy

I couldn't pick between these two despite their contrasting styles, so joint HM it is.

Honorable mention: The Fast and the Furious

Despite being a film seemingly geared entirely around the car chase concept, none of them are good enough to quite crack the top ten.

10. GoldenEye

This is definitely one that displays a little personal bias since Brosnan's debut was one of the first Bond movies I saw, and as with all first impressions of things like that, I remember it with a little more fondness than perhaps it deserves. Still, the childish glee that deposits a Soviet tank into the middle of a car chase and sees it utterly mangle the Russian city streets and buildings is laudable, and Brosnan plays it utterly deadpan, with a quick adjustment of the tie capping off a five-minute destruction of St. Petersburg. Despite at times unwisely clinging on to the Cold War-type scenarios that permeated the previous thirty years worth of Bond (although perfectly understandable when you think about it), this chase sequence shows in microcosm that GoldenEye and Brosnan possess just the right balance of action and humor, replete with a twinkle of the eye. The highlight, though, is Gottfried John's manic use of the hip flask as Ourumov realizes that his car is inexplicably being chased by a giant T-55. Sometimes the car chase needs a subtle injection of freshness that a larger vehicle provides, as GoldenEye proves in abundance. Still, I'll admit it's not quite the classic like the others that follow, but I'm allowed some bias here and there.

9. Taxi

We're talking about the original French movie starring everyone's favorite Gallic ex-con Samy Naceri, not the contemptible Hollywood remake starring faux-monarch Queen Latifah. Filmed with an unmistakable European cool, this is one of the more overtly stylish chases you'll see, with the focus being placed on the speed and danger of the chase rather than explosive set-piece crashes. As Naceri's team of hired hands hacks into the traffic network and conspires to mix up the reds and green, a three-way chase powers through the city streets and on to an under-construction slice of freeway, with a conclusion that's unfortunately cut short in the video I found, but at least that might give some sort of encouragement for those of you who've never seen this to track it down. The pulsating Euro-techno soundtrack adds an extra element of velocity to the chase, which manages for the most part to escape the typical shortcomings of the necessity of speeding up the footage to capture a chase at this speed. The rest of the film, too, is pretty good for some speed-related hijinks, so even if the closing chase isn't your particular cup of onion broth, the remainder of the movie will undoubtedly have something to suit your palate.

8. The Matrix Reloaded

Say what you will about Reloaded - overblown, preposterous, ridiculously CGI-reliant, much of it accurate and frequently couched in more pejorative terms than this - but it remains entertaining form a pure popcorn perspective, without succumbing to the inane philosophical analogies and endless robot-blasting scenes that crippled Revolutions. The best evidence for this is the central freeway chase scene, an action sequence so over-the-top that it required a mile of road to be built from scratch as a backdrop to the carnage. While it doesn't pay to think too hard about the logistics of the chase within the Matrix itself (seriously, all the crazy stuff they can do like jump between speeding car roofs, but they can't shoot straight?), the action itself is ballistic and moves at a pleasingly kinetic pace. Slow-motion camera, thanks to being established within these movies as necessary to their stylistic leanings, plays a major part too, with same utterly gratuitous shots of flipping cars in ultra slow-mo that nevertheless don't fail to thrill. For all that the film has sullied the franchise's reputation thanks to its sub-par performance compared to the original, it's still capable of pulling out all the stops in the action stakes, as witnessed here.

7. The French Connection

For those of you who might have been wondering how on earth you could have a car chase with only one car involved, I present exhibit A, in which Gene Hackman tears up the streets in an attempt to chase down a train through the city center. Widely recognized as one of the finest examples of car chase sequences in cinema, it's only making it in at number seven due to its short length, as despite the undeniable intensity it could have done for going on another minute or so, given the shenanigans that are happening onboard the train at the same time. Minor criticisms though, to be sure, and as Hackman scowls and rages his way through the traffic it's impossible not to be caught up in the chase. There's a constant question hanging over your minds as to how a car could possible keep up with a train through the middle of a city, but The French Connection keeps things completely plausible throughout in order to present one of the more surprisingly realistic chases you're likely to see. Take a quick gander to see a masterclass in creating a believable chase that remains exciting for every second of its running length.

6. Bullitt

The one name that generally springs immediately to mind when thinking of classic car chases, however it doesn't quite make the grade here due to the fact that apart from this extended sequence, which is indeed pulsating and memorable, the rest of Bullitt is pretty mediocre. Still, the ten minute car chase that forms its centerpiece certainly makes the film more than watchable… unless you just wanted to catch the below vid and skip out on the rest of it. Unlike most other car chases, Bullitt doesn't leap straight into the tyre-squealing action, instead building the tension with several minutes of slow-burning car following as McQueen tracks down the two hitmen, before they peal away and the chase begins in earnest. The San Francisco setting leads to a few superb scenes, oft-imitated but never surpassed (take notice, The Rock), but it's easy to forget that the chase goes beyond the central hills of the city and takes a good long while to reach its conclusion. Bonus points too for the cars involved, arguably the coolest from any of these chases, and I say that with very little knowledge about cars other than the fact I watched an edition of Top Gear yesterday and they mentioned the Dodge model that features herein. I shouldn't really explain my seeming expertise, should I? Kinda damages the myth.

5. The Italian Job

It's more of an extended stunt driving display than an actual car chase, as the pursuing vehicles tailing the three vibrantly colored Minis in The Italian Job are given short thrift and very little screen time indeed, whereas the three star cars hog the limelight with some ridiculously entertaining set-pieces. Even though the flow doesn't particularly feel right, that really doesn't matter in the slightest when you're watching cars go up and down staircases, through sewers, over rooftops, and into the back of a moving van. Incidentally, if anyone knows whether the blue car was supposed to miss the on-ramp the first two times, speak up, I'm curious. For those of you who happened onto the film through the somewhat shoddy remake that was so boring I can't even remember if it had a car chase, the original is where the magic lies. For the sheer ability and technique of the drivers involved this chase earns the technical award of this week's list, as I haven't seen another film that features such precision driving. Smashes and crashes are undoubtedly fun to watch, but sometimes it's nice to see a different take on convention. Best enjoyed served cold over a glass of Quincy Jones, as per the vid below.

4. The Blues Brothers

Less an actual chase and more an overt destruction of a shopping mall, nevertheless the police car chase in The Blues Brothers remains a riotously enjoyable crash n' bash that's only made more amusing by the presence of Belushi and Aykroyd in the front seats. Taking the same manic, freewheeling approach that characterizes much of the rest of the film, the sequence sees everyone's favorite mismatched brothers take flight from the fuzz by steering directly into a shopping center and plowing through every last storefront they can find, causing thousands of dollars worth of criminal damage in attempt to evade the law (how ironic) but still remaining on the side of the good and proper. It's another chase where the soundtrack plays a significant part, too, the blazing trumpets perfectly capturing the anarchic spirit of the sequence and enabling it to become one of the film's most memorable moments. While it doesn't possess the technical nous or pyrotechnic excesses of most of our other car chases this week, the gleefully wild abandon with which it sets out to trash as much as possible in a short space of time is eminently praiseworthy, because let's face it, it's just as much fun to see stuff other than cars get smashed up as part of these things.

3. The Road Warrior

This one came up in our "best sequels" column from a couple of weeks ago, and that mention was the inspiration behind the theme this week. Not content with providing a central action set-piece, Mad Max 2 uses the car chase as the actual climax of the movie, serving to up the stakes considerably, since if a car chase happens somewhere in the middle of the movie, you can generally be pretty confident the hero will survive and/or prosper (although admittedly, the presence of a third Mad Max film does strip away some of the suspense). Taking a different tack to most of our other chases, The Road Warrior strips things down to basics, with an open desert road and little in the way of traffic or obstacles standing in the way of the vehicles. On the other hand, it does feature an armada of bikes and cars chasing down an oil tanker, so maybe things aren't quite so simple after all. Still, the extended chase, which takes up near the last ten minutes of the film, is one of action cinema's most unsung set-pieces, with the army of thugs threatening to take down the precious oil commodity providing a relentless finale that exhibits a culmination of the movie's brutality and action.

2. Ronin

A star-studded suspense caper if ever there was one, Ronin features in addition to one of the best ensemble casts of the 1990s, perhaps the best pure action car chase in cinema history. Taking all the disparate elements that make all these other chases great (breakneck pace, twisty roads, busy traffic, a tense musical accompaniment) and fusing them into one cohesive whole, Ronin's chase sequence represents one of the pinnacles of its kind and the definitive action movie car chase. I'm pretty sure that same episode of Top Gear mentioned that the cars involved are pretty cool too, although I'll have to take their word for that since what I know about motoring could be inscribed on the head of a pin by a blind monk using a wooden stake. For all the effusive language used here, frankly words don't really do it justice so take a look at the video, and I defy you to refuse its brilliance. Why only number two then, despite all these plaudits I'm heaping on top of it? Well, move onwards and ye shall see.

1. Vanishing Point

It's kind of appropriate that I couldn't find a video of any actual in-movie footage; all the stuff knocking around on YouTube is from a 90s remake of Vanishing Point that I wasn't aware existed, and having watched a few snippets I think I was better off in that oblivious state. Appropriate in the sense that the movie is to all intents and purposes one long car chase, as protagonist Kowalski races across America alternately being chased by the police and a whole bunch of existential and metaphysical themes that follow him closely in his epic undertaking to get to Frisco for no discernible reason. Urged on by the voice of seemingly omnipresent radio DJ Super Soul, Kowalski slowly becomes the face of US counterculture, "the last American hero", even though it's never made explicit exactly what's going on. It's perhaps an odd choice for the number one slot, but given that every other movie car chase featured herein operates merely on the visceral level, Vanishing Point takes things to a higher plateau without sacrificing any of the animal satisfaction of cars driving fast for no other reason than because they can. Apparently another remake is on the horizon, which isn't really surprising, but I highly doubt it'll reach the same heights. A controversial list topper for sure, but deserving of the title.

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We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

And finally…

Feeling aggrieved or elated at this week's ten picks? Then let me know! The magic of the interweb allows you to post your comments right here on this very page, and if they're especially insightful (or idiotic), I may even respond in the next column. Be sure to tune in next week for another edition of 'Ten Deep', but until then - keep watching the skies.