Car chase fix: Ronin

Car chase scenes in films are a convergence of two major passions of mine. The point at which cars meet films can quite often be the major set-piece, the key tension builder in the story arc and - in most cases - the most expensive element of the production budget.

The cars, the location, the speeds, the crashes, the death-defying choreography, the camera angles, the explosions, the power slides and the sound of engines red-lining to the point where you think the pistons will shoot through the bonnet. All of these elements need to be woven together like the different sections of an orchestra, slowly building in intensity and tension until that final crescendo/release at the end.

When I posted about the car chase in 'Bullitt' a few months back, I possibly gave away my two other favourites - Vanishing Point and Mad Max - a little too early, but the car chase has a rich history in film and it is a deep vein for this blog to plunder.

In this first installment of the Hairybones 'Car Chase Fix' series, I thought I'd offer up a contemporary classic - Ronin. Director John Frankenheimer has serious car chase credentials having been a racing driver himself as well as being director of the 1966 classic 'Grand Prix'. John spoils the viewer with several car chase scenes in this film. One of which features the classic 6.9 litre Mercedes 450 SL and an Audi A8. As much as I love watching these two cars battling it out against the bad guys' Renaults and Citroens, I simply can't go past the final (and lengthy) chase in Paris. It's some of the best stunt driving you'll ever see at Blues Brothers proportions (they reputedly used 150 stunt drivers for this scene). It features a Beemer 5 Series pitched against De Niro in a Renault 406 and is a modern classic with incredible head-on traffic stunt driving action.