Saw this film last night on BBC3. I know it has been discussed on here previously, but it has to have some of the best car chase scenes in the whole of cinema history.
Anyway, what really annoys me about all films is the way that they ignore the real life potential of the cars on the screen. An Audi S8 wth nitrous injection will be more than able to pull away from a 205(!) in a few seconds. Why make a point of getting a character to demand an S8 with nitrous, if they didn't use it to its full potential. They even ignored (in the screenplay) the fact that the BMW in the final scene was an M5!
It's the same in American films. They get two cars chasing, but on a open road, the faster one still can't get ahead or pull away.
|
Damn
I saw it in the schedules, and wondered why it rang a bell. Needless to say i missed it. Probably because I saw "2 fast 2 manygearchanges"
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
Damn I saw it in the schedules, and wondered why it rang a bell. Needless to say i missed it. Probably because I saw "2 fast 2 manygearchanges" ------------------------------ TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
Believe it or not, but it is on, yet again, next week on BBC 3 possibly on Monday or Tuesday - can't remember exactly when as I was quickly scanning my TV listings.
|
Thanks old timer.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
|
|
Believe it or not, but it is on, yet again, next week on BBC 3 possibly on Monday or Tuesday -
According to www.tvgenius.co.uk it's showing: tomorrow (ie, Saturday) on BBC 3 at 21:00.
tv genius is brill at reminding you of tv shows. Just enter the programme(s) you're interested in, provide an email address (or mob no) and they'll notify you before the programme(s) starts.
|
|
|
|
|
I've thought this many times myself, but the real world is so much more duller than a Hollywood movie, eh?
I remember one of the James Bond files where Roger Moore is being chased in a 2CV by a fleet of Mercs, I mean come on, even 007 can't make them things move quick...
|
|
The story runs that, when Ronin was filmed, the stunt drivers used right-hand drive cars fitted with dummy steering wheels on the left-hand side. The cast members sat on the left as the scenes were filmed, so that the look of fear in their eyes during the car chases would be authentic...
|
|
That's true Gromit, check out the extras on the dvd. Great stuff.
|
More trivia, car-related and otherwise, on Ronin (and everything else besides) at the Internet Movie Database. Just type in the name of the movie in the box on the upper-left of the screen:
www.imdb.com
AA
|
|
|
|
|
the 2cv used in james bond movie had the engine from a different model, i think it's 6cv which was more powerful
|
You mean a whopping 28-33 hp? :-P
tinyurl.com/zf5t4
I don't know what those Mercs were (too young me), but they must have had more horses than that...
|
|
|
the 2cv used in james bond movie had the engine from a different model, i think it's 6cv which was more powerful
The 2CV in the film in question (For Your Eyes Only, 1981) used the flat four engine from a Citroën GS.
I am fairly sure that two of the exhaust pipes weren't connected in an effort to give that 2CV flatulent rasp.
|
Very, very few films have decent chase sequences in them. The only ones I can think of offhand are in Bullitt and The French Connection.
I particularly dislike 1) speeded up sequences in which vehicles corner at ridiculous speeds without assuming attitudes, 2) constant tyre squealing even when the car is travelling in a straight line, 3) the failure, noted in another post, of fast cars to outrun or catch slow ones and 4) any car running off the road exploding in a fireball. I also dislike, even in war movies, heavy and sustained machine gun fire. You never see groups of villains carrying the ammo cases they would need to maintain the barrage. Just like old westerns where the hero carries two 49-shooters that never need reloading....
Hollywood, as anyone who has been there can tell you, is incredibly stupid, because that's what it thinks its audience is. Of course there is the occasional honourable exception.
|
Funny, I was looking at A8s on Autotrader yesterday and thinking of Ronin....is that the film (a while since I've seen it) where you get shots of De Niro see-sawing away at the steering wheel? If he actually drove like that he'd be snaking all the way down the road!
And did you know - the Audi in the Nice car chase alternates between an A8 and a S8 . S8 has silver mirrors and a three-spoke steering wheel. In some shots, the Audi has body colored mirrors and a four-spoke steering wheel that comes with the regular A8.
|
And talking of nitrous, I wonder if this would have outrun the S8? More to the point why put nitrous in an A8??
tinyurl.com/ltz4r
|
|
|
I like a good old honest chase through London as seen in Sweeny or occasional Minder episodes.
Has anyone ever actually witnessed a chase? I saw one in Salford a couple of years back and I have to say it was a real let down. Plod chasing a metro, they passed me at about 40 mph on a dual carriage way, did a u-turn and passed me again in the other direction at a similar speed. No squealing of tyres, scattering of pedestrians or even any ploughing through cardboard boxes.
|
Early sixties, Oxford St at night, Humber Hawk came out of Soho turning left towards Marble Arch, much tyre squeal and went off flat out, pursued a second or so later by Ford Zodiac driven in similar fashion. Both cars full of heavies in dark suits.
Plod and Plod? Hoods and Plod? The Kray gang or Curly King or someone on a fun night out? Dunno.
|
|
Havn't seen an actual chase, but did see a jam sandwich Senator 24v enter the Mersey tunnel from the Liverpool end. Unremarkable, you may think, but he was going sideways in his haste! Modern fwd cop cars don't have the same style do they?
|
|
|
|
I was at the head of a rolling road block on the M3. Two cop cars in front, holding up three lanes of traffic running at 15mph. Scroat chased by hampshire helicopter barrels up the hard shoulder and l/h cop car neatly swerves over and sandwiched him into the armco. Had him trapped too as the lh door against the armco, and the R/H door against the cop car. A dog unit toodles up and they then move the cop car and dog drags scroat out throught the drivers door.
Very efficient, but I am not sure it was an approved tactic as I havent seen that one shown on PCA!
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
All good points, but my answer to any criticism of Ronin can be summed up in two words: Natascha McElhone.
|
Just seen the movie clip of the car chase in Ronin on the web. Fantastic, scary and funny at the same time.
Fantastic because some of the driving must have been undertaken by very skilled professionals, but in some bits at least make it seem real and scary.
Funny since cars blow up here and there. The cars wheels don't get destroyed going over curbs, which is odd. Some of the crashes are so well rehersed and end in predictable ways that you are left thinking 'I saw that coming'. The biggest mystery is how the peugot always found the BMW. Did Di Niro just follow the path of destruction left?
|
Ronin.??
Pah!
Blues Brothers and in particular Blues Brothers 2000 much better..
|
|
"All good points, but my answer to any criticism of Ronin can be summed up in two words: Natascha McElhone."
StevieD, you are clearly a man of taste.
|
I have to be honest, I don't think she's that nice. Well - not in Ronin anyway.
|
|
As Mark and lard would say.. Whoooooooooooo??
|
Oh she is that nice.... well, I think so anyway!
What about "The Truman Show" then? Or are we going to have to agree to disagree? : )
|
|
|
|
did a u-turn and passed me again in the other directionat a similar speed. No squealing of tyres, scattering of pedestrians or even any ploughing through cardboard boxes.
Can't help wondering how they managed to pass you at 40mph on a dual carriageway BBD... Perhaps if you'd speeded up and overtaken them plod would have turned his attention to you and speeded up a bit? Of course you could have been on foot I suppose.
An earlier post mentioned that very few actors can simulate driving properly (they tend to be too busy and move the wheel too much). Best I ever saw was Edward G. Robinson, always an intelligent actor. Can't remember the film.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm a Ronin fan. As an ex-Citroen XM owner I note that the side-on views of the XM show the suspension jacked up as it hammers along off-road presumably because the standard road setting would have been too soft resulting in it leaving the sump behind somewhere.
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
|
Take note too that in the early chase there are 2 Xm's pretending to be one.
One has the Citroen logo on the front grille in the middle the other has it to the left (or is it right..)
|
Sad continuity watchers!
It s all about the Chase and the Woman....Oooh and what a woman she is.................slurp;drool
|
|
|
|
Bought the DVD, bought the car. Now proud owner an S8 but converted to LPG to keep the costs down (25,000 mile a year), still runs on petrol when needed, not often, even on LPG it has the legs on most things.
Daedalus
|
Caught this on the box last night.
I'm a bit surprised at you guys thinking that was a good car chase. To my mind it has to be possible to be good. How long would it really have lasted the wrong way up a busy French motorway? About a hundredth of the time it lasted in the film anyway. Shame on you all.
The woman looked a bit of a disciplinarian too. Is this really a motoring website?
|
Disciplinarian? : ) Intriguing. She's not really bossy, Irish or domineering.... she's from Surrey. She's in The Truman Show as well, being less lairy.
Has anyone else noticed the way the American bloke says "Ordi" rather than "Owdi" when he's speccing the S8? Is that an American thing?
|
No - my Dad calls them Ordis too....I don't think he's American although like me, he does like his cheeseburgers.
|
Its the same people who buy knee-sans and vee dub-yers,
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
Terrible terrible Oirish accent.
Try George Clooneys remake of Solaris. The lovely Natasha neecked!
|
|
Thanks Thommo. It's on order.....
|
|
|
|
|
or scottish people who buy pew-shows
|
I spent the enire film convinced it was Meryl Streep, which shows how many films I see.
Disappointed with the plot! Good Lord that was stupid and unsatisfying! Have to admit the car chases were not very thrilling either - left the room to get a drink in the middle of one of them, it was so silly.
Ooh, I've turned into James May over the weekend. Sorry!
|
|
|
|
|
|
