“Follow That Car!”

Shootings, explosions, acrobatic jumps and lots of crumpled metal: these are just some of the ingredients that you find in a car chase. Over the years there has been a radical change, but the drama and excitement that the viewer experiences during those scenes, are among the very peaks of various movies and some chasings were so epic that have even elevated the film to cult levels. Take “Bullitt” for example, the ’68 action movie starring Steve McQueen and his Mustang chasing a couple of bad guys out of San Francisco, or the many scenes that have seen Agent 007 run away or hunt down bandits, along breathtaking roads, often on the verge of some ravine. Then, have you seen “The Italian Job” ?, best proof that you do not need powerful cars to make tasty scenes. Cinema is full of these and although it may seem simple, packing a perfect chase requires a careful set design, music, angles and interpretations. Often assisted by professional stuntmen, professional drivers and, often entrusted to the digital effects, you often recognize a good action movie thanks to these scenes that compare the protagonist to the antagonist in what may be the final and decisive battle, or the moment that twists the plot of the film itself.

Impossible not to mention movie developed around them or even proper racing movies (often illegal races), as “The Cannonball Run”, “Fast and Furious”, or the legendary “Gone in 60 seconds “. Even superheroes, despite their superpowers, can’t help but get behind the wheel and feel like racing drivers (“Batman,” “Iron Man”), but the most passionate are those developed through many scenes of the film (“Duel”) or those that represent, in the opposite way, only a small portion of the entire story (“The Great Escape”), but still able to let you feel the exact same emotions of the characters that are interpreting. It would be so easy to jump in the middle of a market, crashing some fruit boxes and other stuff, but there is a game of looks, of dialogues, which differ in a chase from a Hollywood movie and a cheesy one. In the second case, the substance is poor like the plot of the crime series broadcasting just before the evening news, and if you pay attention, you will notice that cars blowing up are always cheap and old models, and in some cases even replace the new ones of the scene before. Cheap effect, not special effects.

We like breathing dust and grit our teeth, hoping that our chaser makes a mistake and so allows us to escape, at least until the following scene, when everything will be questioned again.