MovieChat Forums > To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) Discussion > Great car chase. Overlooked in best car ...

Great car chase. Overlooked in best car chase lists.

posted a year ago by mitzibishi (2013)
3 replies | jump to latest

William Friedkin did it again. A long dramatic car chase.

Watched this for the first time, and Grand Theft Auto seems to borrow heavily from it.

The car chase lists. Never seen this one on the list. Always see The Rock, which I watched the other week, and the car chase was pretty bad.

I remember not liking The Rock back in the day and rewatching confirmed my dislike for the car chase. (I did appreciate the movie more than when I first saw it).

Confusing shaky cam. Awful shots of Nic Cage sat in a stationary car in a warehouse with somebody shaking the camera extreme close-up. It never looked like Nic Cage or Sean Connery were actually in the car back then and it didn't now.

The Rock car chase has zero spatial awareness or clear indication of what the hell is going on. Too much style over substance. Camera angles for the sake of camera angles to look good for that 5th of a second shot, but not to tell a story within the car chase. The same with Baby Driver. Total mess of quick cuts, shaky cam, inventive camera angles, but total confusion.

To Live and Die in L.A. was long and clean. A narrative built up within the chase and it was completely clear as to what was happening, where everybody was and where they were going.

The only downside was the speeding up of some footage. Looked a little video gamey at points.

[–] GPM316 (111) 13 days ago

I said the same thing.this was the best car chase I've seen in a movie because it wasn't you typical car chase and you didn't know who and how many people were chasing them .very underrated chase

[–] MikeCable (1914) 13 days ago

For sure, this is a great sequence (the beating music, the clever angles, the panic, the confusion, the car abuse!).

I've seen it mentioned on plenty of car chase lists. Love it.

[–] Aylmer (616) 10 days ago

It may well be the best car chase ever filmed. There was some good stuff in LIGHTBLAST, SHORT TIME, BLUES BROTHERS, BULLIT, FRENCH CONNECTION, RONIN, JADE, etc. but I'm having a hard time thinking of a car chase that is consistently as good as the one in this movie.

Some of the highlights:
* The weaving through the loading docks in the warehouse district. I love how it even "stops" for a moment when they have to get a truck out of the way at gunpoint.

* The two nameless pursuing agents' stunt flying and landing with their heads seen slamming around inside - that must have hurt!

* Racing the train and zipping over the train tracks. I could watch that portion thousands more times and never get bored.

* The big-rig jackknifing and smashing into cars as it does. Excellent stunt work.

* John Pankow freaking out - I was involved in a car chase once in High School (angry parent chasing us after my friend egged his kid), one of the simultaneously most exciting and terrifying experiences of my life, and my reaction was 100% exactly the same.

My criticism (imperfections):
* The lead-up is a little weak with the car crash distracting the sniper right as me makes the shot. It could have been cut a little tighter to be a touch more believable.

* The one awkward shot (just prior to "we're going THIS way") of the undercover agent aiming away from the camera. It doesn't quite fit where it's staged from and always bothered me. It would have made a lot more sense to have the camera in another vantage point to make it look like he's aiming AT the heroes and not away from them.

* The highway portion I wish would have been a little longer and had more wide shots of random cars crashing into each other. It's also an odd stylistic choice for all the traffic to be going the wrong direction, which I know was intentional, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me in an otherwise realistic movie.