Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Best car chase in a movie

Brigade du jour

21:52 / 20.12.02

I nominate a top three of :

Bullitt (for the low-key stylish build-up and effective use of hills and troughs)

The French Connection (for sheer visceral ouch factor)

The Blues Brothers (because Nazis die spectacularly and it;s all just mad)

The Return Of Rothkoid

22:21 / 20.12.02

Ronin was essentially an excuse for fuck-off car chases. Frankenheimer does'm well, and this one really is no exception. Boot that Audi!

Though it's not exactly a car-chasing-car chase, I like the battle scene in the opening of The Living Daylights, with the Land Rover hooning around Gibraltar. That rocks rather nicely.

Brigade du jour

22:40 / 20.12.02

Wondered how soon James Bond would get mentioned - tank chase in St Petersburg in Goldeneye (possibly the best Bond film ever made).

The Strobe

23:06 / 20.12.02

Love Ronin.

Also worthy of note: various sequences, especially the final one, in The Driver. Classy.

The Strobe

23:09 / 20.12.02

Also: how the fuck can we let The Italian Job go unmentioned? The Minis are the movie.

04:24 / 21.12.02

That speedboat chase in The World Is Not Enough was pretty bitchin'.

Brigade du jour

04:43 / 21.12.02

Agreed. At the time I was hanging around that part of London a lot so it had an extra spice ... hold on, I just admitted to hanging around docks a lot. Err! Didn't mean that, honest officer.

Saint Keggers

05:32 / 21.12.02

Herbie.

that

11:05 / 21.12.02

The floating car chase with Anakin and Obi-Wan early on in Star Wars Episode 2.

Brigade du jour

20:04 / 21.12.02

Kegboy, you shame me sir. How could I have left out Herbie.

But, are we talking Dean Jones or Bruce Campbell here?

Saint Keggers

04:40 / 22.12.02

Now Im all confused.... I love Herbie Classic but I also love Bruce in his other films.... Nope its definitly Herbie classic. The B.C film was just a way for Dizknee to milk a dead cow.
(But my hasnt Bruce done such fine things other than Herbie. (lets pause to reflect on the greatness that is the Bruce Campbell experience...)

Brigade du jour

04:57 / 22.12.02

Sorry didn't mean to confuse you. Shall we move on to The Rock - that was a good chase, and interspersed with Sean Connery saying the word 'humby'. And lots of disabled people, that classic obstacle of the movie car chase.

Yagg

05:48 / 22.12.02

That speedboat chase in The World Is Not Enough was pretty bitchin'.

I'd have to agree with that. I'm not usually a big fan of the car chase, but the boat chase was something else. As was the giant boat chase in "Live and Let Die."

Also the movie "Vanishing Point," since it's just one big giant desert car chase. Come to think of it, "Duel" is great for the same reason.

The Blues Brothers still win in my book, though. When the one nazi turns to the second one and says "I've always loved you." Hee hee hee. And then there's John Candy. "We're uh...In a truck."

pointless and uncalled for

10:38 / 22.12.02

Armour of God has a fantastic car chase. In general when Hong Kong movie makers get their weight behind a car chase they do make them very well.

Saint Keggers

13:44 / 22.12.02

Seeing as how its been years since Ive seen it, so it may be better in my memory than realife, The bike scenes from Akira.

gridley

12:31 / 23.12.02

Gotta say, the car chase at the beginning of the Professional was a bit of all right....

Rev. Wright

13:19 / 23.12.02

crazy : Spot on.

The last half of Road Warrior

'nuff said.

grant

20:50 / 23.12.02

That one with the football player and the white Bronco.

And the one in Supercop, where Jackie Chan has a car chase down a steep hill through a shantytown. *Through* the shantytown. Shacks go flying left and right.

Vote here.

cusm

07:39 / 24.12.02

Which one was it where Jackie runs around in a hovercraft through the city? Rumble in the Bronx?

And need I remind you all of the lightcycle scene from Tron?

Then of course, there's Smokey and the Bandit.

invisible_al

09:06 / 24.12.02

Oh good call Craptastic, last half of Mad Max 2 is definately one of the classics and the Mad Max 3 chase isn't too shoddy either.
I'll also go with Ronin as well, over 80 cars destroyed for your viewing pleasure

.
Also the Horse/Truck chase after the Arc in Raider of the Lost Arc was a good un'.

Old brown-eye is back

09:49 / 24.12.02

The French Connection. If the DVD is to be believed, Billy Friedkin achieved his chaos by strapping a camera to the front of a car and simply driving the wrong way down a real street. How cool is that?

(The chase in The Bourne Identity aint bad either)

doglikesparky

13:42 / 24.12.02

Let's not forget the end of Toy Story either.

(or indeed Wallace and Grommit chasing the chicken on the model train - but is that a movie?)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:23 / 24.12.02

I think Craptastic hit the nail right on the fucking head there. Come on... as action-packed as the movie may be, it's ALL just a prelude to the car chase. And Feral Kid with the shotgun shells and... and... ooohhh, just EVERYTHING!!!

If I absolutely had to choose a movie that wasn't a Mad Max film for the car chase, Italian Job'd get it.

But I don't. So MM#2 it is.

bjacques

19:43 / 25.12.02

Another movie that's all car chase is called just "Chase," starring Charlie Sheen and Henry Rollins. Sheen is out on parole or escaped from jail, and is on the lam (he was innocent). He kidnaps a yuppie in her car and off they go. Anthony Kiedis and Flea appear briefly in a delightful turn as a couple of muscleheads in a monster truck, trying to do their civic duty. Rollins is a hilariously intense cop. Worth a look.

gentleman loser

22:22 / 04.01.03

Another movie that's all car chase is called just "Chase," starring Charlie Sheen and Henry Rollins.

Ugh, I couldn't disagree more. Like the Keanu crapfest "Speed", it's so dumb that it will most likely make your head explode from the utter stupidity of it all.

I'd have to go with:

The Blues Brothers (look, the new Oldsmobiles are in!)
The Road Warrior (duh)
Ronin (realistic chase scenes, must have given worthless explosion every five second hacks like Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer seizures)

Two other fun (but completely silly) scenes are the RC bomb car/Delta 88 chase scene in the Dirty Harry flick The Dead Pool and a good chase in the Dabney Coleman comedy flop Short Time.

Utopia

06:52 / 05.01.03

I think what Elephant of Surprise is saying is that no permits were issued for the shooting of that scene, which, hands down, makes it super bad-ass.

Rev. Wright

15:49 / 05.01.03

Slim

02:05 / 08.01.03

Fast And The Furious!!!

Knight's Move

16:55 / 08.01.03

What, no vote for 1974 classic This Is Callan based on cult 60's spy show Callan with Edward Woodward?

The chase is a desperate attempt to stop Callan's next victim going away so he can be killed specifically on Sunday (Why, Hunter, why?) and Callan drives a landrover across dodgy countryside terrain (including through a greenhouse that shouldn't have been there) to pursue a jag which hurls itself about on windy roads until the attempt to get across the railway lines ends in disater.

Really nice.

Or Leprechaun with the tiny leprechaun car?

The Strobe

17:12 / 08.01.03

Leprechaun.

Don't start that again.

Jack The Bodiless

20:51 / 08.01.03

(deep breath)

Everything else mentioned is a footnote to the Cannonball Run movies.

(waits)

And I want to see a live action Wacky Races movie so much it hurts me in my soul. Bruce Campbell IS Dick Dastardly. Please, Powers That Be! Please!

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

22:48 / 11.01.03

did anyone see The Transporter?
"you said there would only be 3"
"well now there are 4 of us, drive!"
"with the added weight the fuel i have will not get us to the destination, and the shocks I installed will be less effective"
classic, plus it was the bald guy from Lock Stock....

Ronin was good, and i liked the short european chase in The Peacemaker with that er doctor guy...

Rev. Wright

10:10 / 12.01.03

Seems you missed the graphic link, Jack.

Add Your Reply