New movie “Hit and Run” features one of the oddest mix of car chase cars we’ve seen yet.
Here at E3 Spark Plugs, we love a good movie car chase. Over these past few weekends, Hollywood served up a few of the most unexpected yet. One features two machine-gun wielding heavies crammed into a Smart Car, of all things. Another is simply the non-standard mix of chase cars we’ve ever seen.
While it’s chewing up and spitting out the box office competition this weekend, The Expendables 2 is also generating talk for its shoot-’em-up airport scene, featuring Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger battling bad guys from behind the dashboard of a Smart Car.
“My shoe is bigger than this car,” quips Schwarzenegger’s character, Trench, after yanking the passenger door off its hinges with one swift move.
Turns out that director Simon West had planned to use as Ferrari in the scene. But at the last minute, he got word that the airport floor where the heavily trafficked scene was shot would only support a smaller car.
“I said if we have to have a small car, we should have the smallest car,” West told reporters. “And I fell in love with it – the idea of having Arnold and Bruce crammed into a Smart Car.”
Apparently, Willis was not immediately convinced but eventually came around.
“Once he was in there, he could see the fun of it,” West said.
Further down in the box office results, but just as fun in our opinion, is Hit and Run. Dax Shepard plays Charlie Bronson, a former getaway driver who jeopardizes his Witness Protection Plan identity to help his gorgeous blonde girlfriend (Kristen Bell) get to Los Angeles. All the while, he’s got a posse of feds and his former bank robbing gang hot on his trail. It’s got romance, comedy and some classic car chase action featuring a rather odd mix of cars – a Cadillac CTS-V station wagon, an off-road racing buggy and a souped up 1960s Lincoln Continental. It’s that supercharged 556-horsepower grocery getter that steals a scene or two, serving as an assault vehicle for the gun-wielding villains who just want back the money they stole fair-and square.
What did you think of The Expendables 2 and Hit and Run? And if you were the director of a big-budget action film, what non-standard movie ride would you cast in a crazy car chase?
