Shaker Run

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.

This is the most forgotten and underrated move of the 80s. Great car chase from the start to the final scene and its a trans am so it's awesome fun.

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.

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.

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