The Car Chase Paradox
We Birds love movies. And we know you do, too. There’s just something to be said for getting away from it all and watching an action-packed thriller, a classic comedy, or even a well-done chick flick. But the one thing I don’t want to see in a movie is something too ridiculous to happen in real life. Unless I’m checking out Aliens, I want to be able to relate. And this is precisely why I don’t understand the car chase. I know, I know. They’re awesome. Well, here are some reasons to consider why they’re not.
Have you ever seen a single car chase in your entire life that didn’t end with the cops getting their guy? I mean really, if you’re a criminal and you see a cop in your rearview mirror, you might as well just check your blind spot carefully, turn on your right blinker and slowly merge onto the side of the road. At least earn some brownie points before you get tackled to the ground.
Now don’t get me wrong. While I concede criminals have literally zero chance of getting away, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them try. I still remember waking up at my buddy’s house one summer, turning on the tv and seeing a high speed chase on CNN. It lasted almost three hours. We didn’t change the channel once. Sure, we knew the criminal would be caught, but we watched anyway. Because car chases are incredible.
And that’s where the paradox lies.
The cops will always win. Always. And yet we watch with the enthusiasm of an overtime game with less than a minute to go, as if the ending is undecided. And we cheer on our underdog criminal the whole time. But more than that, car chases in movies have become a staple of must-see action flicks. Take the Bourne series for example. These were some of the best action flicks of the last decade, and each included a memorable chase scene. In fact, the car chases were so good, they kind of became the series’ thing. And each time, Jason Bourne would get away.
Every time.
But he’s not the only one to have the same luck in movies. Nicolas Cage stole 50 cars in a night. And that was the remake. Hundreds of movies have featured high-velocity car chases over the years, and I bet only a handful have ended with the movie’s protagonist in cuffs. If that. Zero car chases in my lifetime have ended the way they do in Hollywood, and yet we all love it. All I ever hear after movies is “the story wasn’t very believable, that would never happen, the special effects seemed fake.”After The Bourne Supremacy, all people could talk about was “how real that car chase was.”
Well folks, it wasn’t. The effects may have been incredible and the cinematography sublime, but Jason Bourne walked away only slightly bruised and managed to lose every single cop trailing him along the way. That stuff just doesn’t happen. I don’t understand why movies keep getting made to make it seem like it does, and why we keep giving Hollywood car chases, and only Hollywood car chases, a free pass.
Until some hero criminal is able to outrun the cops and change the car-chase landscape forever, there is simply no precedent for these continual getaways. It has to stop.
So what do you think readers? Can you clue me in as to why car chases keep getting made like this? Do you like them? Do you hate them? Let’s hear it.
I am not sure if this will change your mind or not on the possibility of getting away, but here you go:
http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2009/06/16/news/mj1197266.txt
People flee from the cops all the time, you just don’t hear about it cause they don’t want you to. Also, the car chase in Bullit is just fucking awesome.
[...] spoken about car chases before. You know how we feel about them. We prefer reality. Maybe then, we should stop watching movies [...]