18
May 2007
Top 10 movie car chases of all time
Sensing you´re being followed, you decide to try and
lose the menacing vehicle hovering in your rear-view
mirror.
So you put the pedal to the metal and launch
into breakneck speeds along the back streets,
careering between other cars and pedestrians, and
hurtling through red lights. But you can´t shake the
tail.
With increasing bravado, you attempt ludicrous
manoeuvres and insane jumps - but still the pursuit
continues.
Eventually you lose control and slam your
Corsa into a supermarket wall, and the police car
pulls up behind you. You do five years for dangerous
driving, but your friends agree it made for the
best-ever instalment of ´Police, Camera, Action!´
It’s a scenario with some obvious downsides, so here´s
10 of the best celluloid car chases which will provide
all the thrills of the above, without the threat of
imminent death, lifetime driving ban, jail term and
general disgrace.
1. Bullitt (1968)
Are you going to San Francisco? Probably best avoided
if Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is on a
case.
At the wheel of his dark green GT Ford Mustang,
the maverick cop turns the tables on two hitmen in a
black Dodge Charger, and the ‘City by the Bay’ plays
host to a tyre-squealing duel down urban hills and
round coastal bends, ending in a fuel-injected
inferno.
Lalo Schifrin’s superb score is jettisoned
when the chase begins, with the roaring engines
providing the only soundtrack necessary.
• View the clip
2. The Italian Job (1969)
It’s Italian cops versus British robbers in the
much-loved heist movie that helped the Mini achieve
cult status.
Our brave bullion snatchers lead the
polizia (in Alfa Romeos) on a traverse of Turin -
taking in museums, arcades, rooftops, churches and
sewers (the latter section actually filmed in
Coventry).
The whole sequence was orchestrated by one
of the stunt industry’s true geniuses, Remy Julienne.
The chase in the 2003 remake was relocated to Los
Angeles, and is also thrilling to watch (unlike Mark
Wahlberg’s acting).
• View the clip
3. The French Connection (1971)
A woman is pushing a pram across a Brooklyn street as
an elevated train rattles overhead. Suddenly a brown
Pontiac LeMans driven by overzealous New York
detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) comes out of
nowhere, heading straight for mother and child.
She
screams, he yells and yanks the wheel, narrowly
avoiding the innocent civilians but not a pile of
cardboard boxes (what else?) on the side of the road.
Director Billy Friedkin broke a lot of rules - much of
Hackman’s insane driving and the honking horns were
authentic.
• View the clip
4. Smokey And The Bandit (1977)
Bo ‘Bandit’ Darville (Burt Reynolds) shows a total
disregard for traffic regulations in the deep South as
his TransAm - a decoy to draw attention from his
friend Snowman’s truck, with its cargo of illegal
liquor - successfully eludes the inept Sheriff Buford
T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) and his deteriorating
Pontiac.
Several more Texarkana state troopers are
forced off the freeway as the Bandit’s black beauty
tames all types of terrain, aided by a truckin’
awesome convoy. 10-4 good buddy!
(Jumping the Mulberry Bridge)
• View the clip
5. The Blues Brothers (1980)
“Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of
the Blues Brothers has been approved." But it was the
Illinois law enforcement community’s transport budget
that took the biggest battering the day Jake and
Elwood Blues attempted to deliver orphanage funds to
the Cook County Assessor.
The Bluesmobile (a 1974
Dodge Monaco) leaves a trail of police cars in its
wake; over 60 were bought and trashed by the
producers, who also dropped the neo-Nazis’ Ford Pinto
from a helicopter a mile up for no real reason.
• View the clip
6. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
Alright, it’s not a car chase - it’s Arnie on a Harley
Davidson, chasing Robert Patrick’s ’mimetic polyalloy’
T-1000 in a semi truck, chasing a teenage John Connor
(Edward Furlong) on a puny dirt bike. But that can’t
stop this chase through the storm drains of Los
Angeles making the list.
Equally impressive is the
sequence in T3: Rise of the Machines, with Arnie back
on a bike and Kristianna Loken’s T-X in a truck with a
giant crane, which is put to good use in destruction
rather than construction.
• View the clip
7. Ronin (1998)
The plot is difficult to follow -
just what is in that metal case? - but the crazy chase
sequences filmed on the streets of Paris make the ride
worthwhile.
John Frankenheimer directed all the action
himself (instead of getting a second unit in) and the
likes of Robert De Niro and Jean Reno were at the
wheel as much as possible - although as many as 150
stunt drivers were used in total.
The cars involved
include a BMW 5 Series and Peugeot 306s, so this is
one you might be able to afford to recreate
yourselves.
• View the clip
8. Bad Boys II (2003)
A big silly Michael Bay movie
that is something of a guilty pleasure, particularly
after being heavily referenced in Hot Fuzz.
The
MacArthur Causeway in Miami witnesses a classic
cavalcade of car carnage, with Detective Mike Lowrey
(Will Smith) winding his way through the traffic at
insane speeds in a silver Ferrari.
Throw in some
lunatic bad guys pushing flash motors out of a stolen
transporter, whilst brandishing assault rifles, and
not even Martin Lawrence’s dodgy wisecracks can ruin
the fun.
Contains strong language
• View the clip
9. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Whilst the first
Matrix film was almost universally admired, the
sequels were almost universally abhorred.
Over-reliance on CGI was one of many criticisms, but
the freeway chase in Reloaded is a genuinely
jaw-dropping example of the kind of thrills it can
deliver.
The highlight of a lengthy sequence comes
when Trinity (Carrie Anne Moss) decides to ride a
Ducati 996 against the traffic, in a bid to elude the
never-ending hordes of Agents in trucks and police
cars.
• View the clip
10. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Constant collisions
and Paul Greengrass’ gritty cinematography make this
more realistic than most other movie car chases.
A
dreary afternoon in Moscow is suddenly livened up as a
grubby yellow Volga taxi crashes its way through the
streets in a foolhardy bid to escape the Russian
police.
However, when Jason Bourne (Matt Damon)
realises he can’t outrun Kirill (Karl Urban) in an
underground tunnel, he engineers a clever turnaround
that’s more crush than crash.
• View the clip