There’s little in this life I love more than a good car chase scene in a movie. As a little kid it was movies like “101 Dalmatians” and “The Italian Job” that gave me the car chase itch, and as I got older I graduated to more serious franchises like “Fast & Furious,” “Mad Max” and “Mission: Impossible.” Car chases can be serious, or humorous, or just plain fantastical, and they can fit into so many different genres of movie.
My personal favorite has got to be the chase in the beginning of 1995’s “GoldenEye,” which marked Pierce Brosnan’s debut as James Bond.
In the scene, Bond is driving his Aston Martin DB5 through the mountains above Monaco, with Caroline, a psychiatric evaluator from MI6, in the passenger seat to evaluate him. On they road they encounter a Ferrari F355 driven by Xenia Onatopp (played by the fabulous Famke Janssen), the main villain’s henchwoman who derives sexual pleasure from murdering people.
A hilarious, exhilarating chase ensues, with the two cars drifting around corners, careening past tractors, almost killing dozens of bicyclists and nearly running each other off the road. Onatopp even sends the Ferrari into a 1080-degree spin in gravel, which looks awesome. The entire time Bond and Onatopp are flirting, waving each other ahead before the terrified Caroline finally yells at Bond to stop the car. He eventually does, sliding the DB5 into a turnout with a great view and popping open a hidden bottle of champagne. Bond and Caroline then kiss, of course.
GoldenEye is one of my favorite movies in general, and this scene really is one that I revisit and talk about all the time. It’s the perfect mix of humor and action, with genuinely good driving action to boot. Following the chase scene, Bond pulls up to the casino in Monte Carlo, and for this bit Brosnan did the driving himself, accidentally causing a good bit of damage to the DB5, as he recounted to Esquire:
We’re there late at night, after midnight, and I drive up and I get out, cut. And they say, ‘Do you want to drive the car back?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll drive it back.’ So I get out, do my little Bond quip, get back, reverse the car, go back to number one, starting position. Well we did this about five, six times, and on the sixth go-around I could smell burning. And, now there are many people gathered to watch, there’s hundreds of people around the casino. And the man who owns the car is there, watching his beautiful vehicle be driven by yours truly. I’d left the handbrake on.
So, dear readers, I ask you: What’s your favorite car chase scene in a movie? I promise I won’t judge your taste, at least not too badly. Let us know in the comments, and I’ll round up all the best answers in a couple days.
