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.

The critique of this movie will always be divided by 2. #1-Yes, it is a car chase movie in New Zealand (Home of the Hobbits). Shaker Run is a basic, campy movie without all the glamour most Hollywood movies seem to need as their by-lines. The heroes never use guns, yet the bad guys use lots. They incorporate the 'teary eyed' hero when his past emerges. And the good guys win in the end. Nuff said about Hero versus villain (and it is perfectly clean for the youngest of viewers). #2-The flick was made in 1986 during the Retro/Disco era when cowboys wore Pink. But, again, they didn't lead with the stereotypical Hollywood stuff that spoils most of their movies. There were no equally proportioned ethnic groups in the Hero club and no one was an Ex-Special Forces guy (always ruins things). Yes the girl is pretty. But it isn't as if her bones are for jumping. It is just a nice,as I said - Campy movie. Cliff Robertson is 63 - and plays the part well. Casey should have had more of a Hero status driving - to become like his father. All in all, it isn't a stupid movie like so many others in the same Genre. And it sure isn't like most 1986 movies except for the fact that people were quite Pink in that time. Embarrassing, I know - but when cowboys drive Pink cars, then they have to think they're in the gutter and the only way out is look to the stars (or helicopter, in this case).

Cliff Robertson and Leif Garrett both give great performances in this exciting, well made thriller with a decent budget and the best car chase ever filmed.

I don't usually give 10 / 10 for a movie, but this one deserves it. I watched it so many times with my brother, we literally memorized every single line. The car chases, the action, the music, the acting, all great. I loved it when I was 10, and I love it when I first seen it as a kid, and I love it now too, yet, 30 years passed.

As far as I see, many people are fan of this movie, maybe there is some nostalgia to it, I don't know. But I know that every time I watch this movie, I get pumped because of the non-stop car-chasing action and the music.

Shaker Run shows more of the New Zealand countryside than even Lord of the Rings. As an added bonus, there are fast V-8 powered cars speeding through it. While it is a bit thin on plot, what is provided is sufficient and more than made up for by the good cinematography, excellent actors and fulfilling chase scenes. Realizing that V-8 powered cars, let alone American V-8 powered are quite rare in New Zealand these days, it is quite fun to behold Judd (Cliff Robertson), a cantankerous American professional driver, blasting across bridges and down roads in the style of Mad Max in a modified Trans Am whilst outmaneuvering the secret police chasing him in sinister black indigenously-produced V-8 pursuit vehicles with air scoops in their hoods. The treat of the movie, in my opinion, was the part where Mr. Carney commandeers a Chevy-powered race car from a downtown dealership, drives it through a storefront window and pursues the Trans Am up a mountain road.

Shaker Run is a rare snapshot of New Zealand during the 1980's. The movies is as rare as it is entertaining for travel-oriented and eclectic motor heads such as myself.