Shaker Run

This is one of my favourite films, just because it's fun. Cliff Robertson and Leif Garrett might have been down-and-out as actors at the time, but they play a down-and-out race team and as Americans in a country noted for a very tough films industry they are a treat. The interplay between what they expect and what Lisa Harrow's character knows better is a big part of the fun. In the end there really is no bad or good guy-- both NZ and the US are guilty of underestimating the heroes and each other; and the heroes have underestimated everyone but themselves.

As a car-oriented film it will please the car-chase fans, but there is more to it than that. First of all you may never see more of the South Island's intense countryside than here, with scenes of wide-open landscape being covered at greater than highway speeds. As a scientific thriller the plot centring round an AIDS-type virus provides food for thought-- just what DO you do with a strain that deadly anyway? Thus the boy-racer speed-thrills and the taut intelligence-vs-science conflict aptly convey the clueless desperation of these three characters as they search for the truth about each other and the next hint of truth about what's going to happen next.

Some observations:

1. Too much gunfire! I can't imagine NZ cops using automatic weapons in the middle of a neighbourhood.

2. I find it hard to believe Robertson shifts the TH-400 automatic gearbox into top at over 100 MPH! Yet the Chevy-powered Trans Am's speedo appears to be in MPH, not KPH.

3. With driving like this the heroes never seem to stop for petrol. And although it's cold season in Queenstown they also never seem to slip on ice.

4. Shona Laing and her band are wonderful in the pub scene. (Whatever happened to her?)

Order in pizza, watch it again and look closer.