10 Best Action/Adventure Movies Featuring Memorable Chase Scenes.
May 01 '04
The Bottom Line These are them, my chase favorites. I hope that while you read this you either get that adrenaline rush again, or look forward to being taken for a ride!
There are so many movies that have chase scenes, that sometimes I think that it is a requirement on the part of the producers. To a certain extent nearly every movie has one, even if it is minor or in the figurative sense. We all (or at least many of us) have our favorites in various categories, and here are the ten movies which have the chase scenes which I have enjoyed the most.
10) In "The Rookie" (with Clint Eastwood), Raul Julia is a bad guy making a getaway in a car hauler loaded with unique and extremely expensive cars whose combined value is in the millions of dollars. In order to slow down Clint, Raul releases car after car, as we witness crunched metal, flying glass, and tons of sparks showering in the night, with all of these cars ultimately getting totaled. An entertaining sequence with Jaguars, Ferraris, Porsches, and the like being destroyed, yet not one has a driver. Great fun! In addition, there are other great chase scenes scattered throughout the movie.
9) In "Short Time," Dabney Coleman is a cop who (incorrectly) thinks he will die very soon (not in months or weeks, not necessarily tomorrow, but in, let's say, a "short time"), and wants to accelerate the process (which would otherwise be very painful) and leave the insurance money to his kid and ex-wife. The catch is that the insurance only pays if he dies "on duty." So, he goes for the "meanest bad guys in town," and is involved in at least two hilarious sequences. At the end of one of them his car lands on a street below after falling off the side of a hill, with his car getting pretty smashed-up. His frustration is evident, however, when he notices that his seat belt protected him from everything but a minor scratch.
8) In "The In-Laws" with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, there are two splendid chase scenes. In the first, (which technically is not a chase scene) they are in a taxi in Manhattan weaving through the streets, and when the cab finally stops (driver stating: "the eagle has landed"), Arkin (a dentist petrified with fear) asks Falk (a CIA guy, or was he?): "Did we hit the little boy on Sixth Avenue? And Falk responds: "Nah, we missed him by a good foot and a half." Later in the movie they are in some Central or South American country (its name was not exactly specified) being chased by assassins, in a ride that starts with Arkin on the roof of another cab, and winds up with Falk shooting a truck loaded with bananas to thwart the bad guys.
7) In "The Hard Way," there are two well-executed chase scenes, one at the start and one at the end, each of which is worthy of mention. But I will only mention the first one. In it, the good guy (tough cop James Woods) is hanging from the door on the driver's side of a tow truck the bad guy stole. Woods keeps yelling to another cop in a chasing squad car to shoot, has several close calls with objects such as cars and other people (this is in addition to having to fight with one hand with the bad guy), and when James is finally thrown off, the bad guy says: "bye bye" as if he had just dropped off his son at school.
6) In "Enemy of the State," there's a series of top-notch chase scenes. Come to think of it, nearly the whole movie is one exciting chase after the other. So, I'll just briefly mention the first, in which an acquaintance of Will Smith (he plays a law-abiding lawyer in this movie) is chased and ultimately killed in Washington, after being pursued by a team that had "all the technology," including satellite "intelligence."
5) In "Die Hard: With a Vengeance," there are tons of great chase scenes, all exceptional. One involves a joyride in a Yugo, later a Mercedes (both either stolen or commandeered), and another has them barreling through New York (in a taxi; anyone noticing a pattern here?) including a jaunt through Central Park. These chase scenes also feature snappy dialog; as they drive through Central Park we have this:
John McClane (Bruce Willis, calmly): Relax, I know what I'm doing.
Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson, the frantic passenger, fingers dug-in two inches into the dashboard): Not even God knows what you're doing, McClane.
Upon exiting Central Park unscathed:
Zeus: Are you aiming for these people?
John McClane: No. [Pauses] Well, maybe that mime.
4) In "License to Kill," there are several great chase scenes, too. Indeed, most James Bond movies have them. So, I chose this one in the name of them all. My favorite sequence in the movie involves exploding tanker trucks, rocket-propelled grenades, a squished Jeep, an airplane, and even a truck cab pulling a wheelie!
3) In "The Blues Brothers," we have three long and divine chase scenes, plus a couple of shorter ones. The first has them running away from the cops and flying over a drawbridge which is opening, the second has them getting away from "The Good Ole Boys" (a country music band) after stealing their gig, and the third has them making it back to Chicago to get the money to save the orphanage (yep)...with (what seems to be) at least a thousand cop cars (among other interested parties) in the chase.
2) "The French Connection" features the most riveting chase scene I have seen. Gene Hackman is barreling through the streets of Chicago chasing the bad guy, who took control of a subway train. There are many close calls (complete with a baby nearly hit), excessive speed, crashes into other vehicles and barriers, other assorted wild maneuvers, and throughout it keeps building more and more tension, and all, of course, with no computer or otherwise artificial effects.
1) Finally, in "What's up, Doc?" we have my favorite. This chase scene has assorted cars, a delivery bicycle, oranges, a big pane of glass, Chinese Dragons, a hapless Volkswagen Bus, many identical overnight bags, a floating car, several clothes changes, mafiosos, a government agent, an upstanding citizen, a rock collector, a wacky gal, a woman named Eunice (there's a woman named Eunice?), a rich old lady, and others, along those hilly San Francisco streets. Two moments are among the most side-splitting I've witnessed in the movies: the first involves a man walking on a sidewalk when he notices an orange rolling down the street. As more oranges roll by, his trepidation increases. Finally, when the onslaught of the chasers and chasees is approaching, he jumps over a hedge and lands flat on a table (ooof, that must have hurt!) in a patio restaurant. I can envision what could have occurred that night:
Her: What on earth happened to you??
Him (as he watches his girlfriend walk out the door for the very last time): I'm telling you honey, it all started when an orange approached me on the street....
The other involves this tid-bit you may or may have not noticed: when they (Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand) are hiding in the long Chinese dragon (part of a block-long heritage parade), the Chinese xylophone band is playing...."La Cucaracha!"
There were other movies that contained excellent chase scenes, such as "Terminator 2," "Smokey and the Bandit," "Arlington Road," "Best Men," Lethal Weapon 2," "Romancing the Stone, "Thelma and Louise," and even "The Little Vampire." I'm sure you have your favorites too, and I would enjoy reading about them.
Thanks for reading my chase favorites! :-)
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