Take 1998’s Ronin, for example. The chief of police in Paris told the production crew they could basically do what they liked, so stunt co-ordinator and former racer Jean-Claude Lagniez ensured the cars were really doing 100-125mph during the chase.
In fact, he scripted the entire chase, chose the cars and planned how the accidents would happen. The pivotal scene in the tunnel was shot at night and filmed at full speed because director John Frankenheimer (who had in 1966 directed the excellent Grand Prix) refused to speed it up in the edit, as he wanted it to feel real.
The details are spot on, too: there are no silly misplaced gearchanges, no randomly cut scenes of the hero accelerating hard while already driving flat out, no slide-whistle barrel rolls.
That’s what makes this fine example of the genre (and other car chases in movies like the Jason Bourne series, Quantum of Solace and Baby Driver) so captivating, because you feel like you’re in the passenger seat with the protagonists. They’re real, they’re exciting to watch and they ensure that we petrolheads leave the cinema with something to talk about, no matter the quality of the rest of the film.
Look at Bullitt (1968): I must have watched the entirety of that 11-minute chase 30 times but couldn’t tell you anything about the characters involved, nor what the movie is really about. What a classic.
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