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Car chase often describes the pursuit of a criminal by police, and is increasingly captured on film from media and police helicopters. In movies and television a car chase is a scene involving one or more automobiles being pursued by other vehicles. Car chases are ubiquitous to the action movie genre, and some movies are almost entirely built around car chases. They are so popular because they are fast moving scenes with a great deal of excitement, but are not hugely expensive. Due to cars crashing and banging they can contain violence without any harm to individuals and thus secure lower ratings. Car chases often "star" high powered vehicles.
Real life car chases
Los Angeles has especially many car chases that are captured on film, with news helicopters ready to film the incidents. Many are broadcast live. Some news websites have footage of car chases. In 2002, there were 700 pursuits reported in the city. There was a famous slow speed car chase of O. J. Simpson in 1994. Police have tactics to use in car chases such as the PIT maneuver, and stopping cars with Spike strips.
Princess Diana was killed in 1997 in Paris in a high speed car chase, being followed by French photographers.
The 2005 Macquarie Fields riots occurred in Sydney, Australia after a local driver crashed a stolen vehicle into a tree, killing his two passengers following a high-speed police pursuit. The death of university student Clea Rose following a police chase in Canberra sparked major recriminations over police pursuit policies. Ole Christian Bach was found shot and killed in Sweden after he had been followed in a car chase by Swedish undercover police.
Reality television has combined with the car chase genre in a number of television shows and specials featuring real footage, mostly taken from police or media helicopters of actual criminals fleeing from police.
In film
Although car chases on film were staged as early as the motor vehicle itself, the first modern car chase is generally seen as that in 1968's Bullitt. The chase in this film was far longer and far faster than what had gone before, and placed cameras so that the audience felt as though they were inside the car. Even during the most calamitous scenes, the star - Steve McQueen - could be clearly seen at the wheel of the vehicle. The French Connection further increased the realism. While previous chases had been filmed on closed roads and isolated highways, The French Connection placed the chase in the midst of busy traffic and pedestrians. Further after this was The Seven-Ups, which featured Bill Hickman as one of the drivers who previously featured in Bullitt, which contained a frantic chase again through New York, and was regarded as having many qualities similar to that of Bullitt.
As time went on, so did the expectations of the movie car chase. Since Bullitt, car chases featured in movies have continually become more advanced and therefore more entertaining. Car crashes have also formed an increasingly important role, with the destruction of any vehicle often coming as a delight to the viewer. An early example of a staged but startling accident in a movie chase can be found in the 1974 movie MCQ, which featured an incredible rollover, the first cannon rollover in fact, across a beach. The spectacle came at a cost for the stuntdriver Hal Needham however, who sustained multiple injuries after setting the explosives too high.
Perhaps the most typical car chase is one in which a car is being pursued by police cars. In part because car chases are so common many movie makers try to introduce a new twists to them. One of the most famous variations is from The French Connection and involves a car chasing an elevated train. Chases involving buses, trucks, snowmobiles, tanks, and virtually every other type of vehicle (with or without wheels) have appeared in one film or another.
Probably the most complex type of car chase involves going the wrong way in moderately congested freeway traffic (e.g. Ronin, To Live and Die in LA). There are also a number of films that feature complex large-scale chases involving a lot of vehicles in the pursuit, notable examples including The Blues Brothers, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max 2
Another method of escalating a car chase scene is to have a characters move from one vehicle to another and to fight in or on top of a moving vehicle.
Several television shows have been built around the popularity of car chases, such as the Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider & Airwolf.
In more modern times, the use of computer generated imagery is becoming increasingly popular, and, although costly, eliminates any danger level. While impressive at times, it is often argued that it eliminates the realism of the chase scene, which can then in turn damage the established thrill factor. Recent examples of this computer generated imagery can be found in the Michael Bay films Bad Boys 2 and The Island. An example of a lower budget film using computer generated imagery in a car chase is RSTC: Reserve Spy Training Corps.
Notable car chase films
- All the James Bond films (1962 onwards)
- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
- Grand Prix (1966)
- Bullitt (1968)
- The Italian Job (1969)
- Duel (1971)
- The French Connection (1971)
- Two Lane Blacktop (1971)
- Vanishing Point (1971)
- Le Casse (1971)
- Un Uomo da rispettare (The Master Touch) (1972)
- What's Up, Doc? (1972)
- The Seven-ups (1973)
- Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)
- Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
- McQ (1974)
- The Sugarland Express (1974)
- Una Magnum Special per Tony Saitta (Blazing Magnum) (1976)
- Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
- The Driver (1978)
- Mad Max (1979)
- Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)
- The Blues Brothers (1980)
- Used Cars (1980)
- Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
- Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983)
- Fletch (1985)
- Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
- To Live and Die In L.A. (1985)
- Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
- Speed Zone! (1989)
- Short Time (1990)
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
- Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)
- Joshua Tree (1993)
- Striking Distance (1993)
- The Chase (1994)
- Bad Boys (1995)
- Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
- Carpool (1996)
- The Rock (1996)
- Breakdown (1997)
- Black Dog (1998)
- Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
- Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
- Ronin (1998)
- Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000 - Remake)
- The Fast and the Furious (2001)
- The Hire series (2001)
- The Bourne Identity (2002)
- The Transporter (2002)
- 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
- Bad Boys 2 (2003)
- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
- The Italian Job (2003 - Remake)
- The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
- Starsky & Hutch (2004)
- The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
- The Dukes Of Hazzard (2005)
- The Island (2005)
- Transporter 2 (2005)
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Computer and video games
Certain racing computer and video games with police cars have car chase (pursuit) racing/evasion modes. Notable examples of such games include the following:
- Certain installments of the Need for Speed series, most notably Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005).
- The Grand Theft Auto series (1997 to present).
- The Driver series (1999 to present) is described as a direct tribute to car chases, and all but the most recent in the series have featured a "Film Director" mode which allows players to take any driving they have just done and create their own car chases by setting up cameras and the like in a post-production style movie suite.
- Starsky and Hutch is a video game based on the popular classic TV series, and the majority of the game revolves around a car chase of some sort through the various missions on offer.