Shaker Run

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).

Shaker Run is strictly a film for those who like car chases with little plot to get in the way.

Cliff Robertson is down on his luck race driver and Leif Garrett is his mechanic stuck in New Zealand some 8000 miles from America. A deadly virus has been developed in a lab and Dr. Lisa Harrow doesn't trust her own government not to give it to the military. So what does she do? She contacts the American Central Intelligence Agency and of course they're real interested.

Lisa steals the virus and hires Robertson and Garrett to transport it to a designated hand off spot. Of course they have all of New Zealand law enforcement chasing them soon enough without at first Robertson and Garrett knowing why.

On the plus side there is both nice scenic photography of the New Zealand country side and of Auckland and Wellington. There are enough car chases and stunt driving to satisfy the most insatiable junkie for this stuff. Cliff Robertson and the rest of the cast basically walk through their parts, I'm sure Robertson did it for the money and for a nice trip to New Zealand.

I have to agree with another viewer, if you didn't see the police with New Zealand uniforms and didn't hear the Kiwi accents, you'd swear you were watching the American cops dealing with a fugitive with all that weaponry. Foreigners occasionally do more than chide Americans for their obsessive love of guns, yet these cops seem to find they come in handy if ineffective in dealing with a professional race car driver.

It was around this time when Cliff Robertson was struggling for work, due to his age and being blacklisted by Hollywood, so that explains what he's doing in a New Zealand movie. Robertson doesn't show much enthusiasm - he seems to be phoning it in and using his charisma to cover his lack of energy. (His co-star, Leif Garrett, actually isn't bad.) Anyway, the main features of the movie are car chases and action sequences. Some of the stunt sequences aren't bad, but the majority of the action is poorly directed, with continuity goofs to boot. On the other hand, the screenplay has some interest, with the N.Z. filmmakers having a cynical view of their government and portraying America in a heroic role. On the whole, the movie is pretty mediocre, but I think some viewers may get more out of it than I did, viewers who want to see the N.Z. countryside and urban environment (we get plenty of both), and who find the idea of a N.Z. action movie intriguing.

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.

This film is a fairly original piece of budget wonder. Not to be watched by casual film goers as it won't exactly amaze them. This film has a great mixture of tastes, for starters it has a scientific edge;2 the boy racers out there will love it's realistic(well maybe not) stunts. The acting is awful but this adds to the 80's nostalgia. If you don't see it you will live and if you do nothing will change it's that sort of film