Driving films are big bucks for Hollywood film makers – there are now a total of 6 Fast and Furious movies floating around the filmsphere, with a 7th currently in production. The fact of the matter is that fast cars are cool and any movie with this premise is all but guaranteed to be awesome and subsequently successful. As long as there are car fanatics out there, there’ll be car movies, but there are a select few driving films which are just that little bit more excellent.
Take a look at 5 movies we believe make driving look ridiculously badass in the most effortless way imaginable.
#5. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Numero cinco on our list is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. For those of you unlucky enough not to have seen this absolute blinder, it’s the story of Raoul Duke – a self-proclaimed ‘gonzo journalist’ – and his attorney, Mr. Gonzo. It tells the epic story of their drug-fuelled adventure reporting on the Mint 400 rally – a cross-desert race through some challenging climates, where they need to abandon their hired convertible, nicknamed the Great Red Shark – the same car driven by Hunter S. Thompson (author of Fear and Loathing in its original novel form). Between their cross-country adventures in the Red Shark and the awesome 4×4 beast they take around the rally track, this movie offers unparalleled levels of awesomeness and is, by any standards, totally badass.
#4. Gone in 60 Seconds
We tried to think of something that’d be cooler than a movie featuring 50 excellent cars in the space of a single night and concluded that it probably doesn’t exist. Better still, how about a film which revolves solely around stealing 50 high-end cars in a single night? Gone in 60 Seconds is (arguably) one of the greatest driving movies ever conceived, albeit let down to some degree by less-than-perfect CGI on that final bridge jump. Breaking into the Ferarri warehouse and driving F550s and Testarosas right out the front door, stealing a limo and smashing a ’67 Shelby Mustang into Long Beach are just some of the reasons Gone in 60 Seconds made number 4 on our list.
#3. Drive
This one’s for the indie lovers. Here Ryan Gosling plays a disgraced Nascar racer turned getaway driver in a movie which is so gloriously beautiful and melancholy that it defies belief. Drive offers some of the best racing scenes in movie history, with an atmosphere that is utterly palpable and aesthetics which you’d struggle to rival. Driver – the only name we get for this mysterious racer – is the guy every other getaway driver should aspire to be, calm and collected, but perfectly orchestrating every move to escape under the police radar. This is 100 minutes you’ll spend at the edge of your seat, followed by several hours of existential trauma – but the best possible kind.
#2. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
We can say with some certainty that, in the entire history of the Fast and Furious franchise, we have never once heard anyone compliment the film series on the strength of its dialogue. These films are 80% car chases and we can’t help but think that Tokyo Drift could’ve pushed its IMDB score of 6.3 up a few notches by cramming that remaining 20% with a little more driving. Fast and Furious is the movie franchise we love to hate and hate to love. Some of the manoeuvres executed in this film are flat-out impossible – some even defy physics – but we didn’t ask for realism, we asked for badass. And watching these tuned-up import cars slide sideways around corners for an action-packed 90 minutes is nothing more or less than some absolutely cracking entertainment. For these reasons, Tokyo Drift is a secure second place for badassery.
#1. Death Proof
As soon as you see Tarantino’s name attached to a film, you prepare yourself for some awesome adult content – but nothing can prepare you for Death Proof. In this brutal film, retired Stuntman Mike, has built his own ‘death-proof’ car – like the ones used in Hollywood to protect stuntmen – and proceeds to use it as his weapon of choice while he drives around stalking and murdering groups of girls. That is, until the day he messes with the wrong group of adrenaline junkies, while one is tied to the bonnet in a game called ‘ship’s mast’ (where they drive around trying to hold on for dear life as they fly through country roads at insane speeds). Evidently these girls have a deathwish and Stuntman Mike is happy to oblige – or at least give it a good go. When the girls decide to exact some revenge on the bloodthirsty retiree, that’s when things really heat up – if a bunch of girls relentlessly beating the hell out of a predator is the kind of thing that floats your boat, this is the movie for you.
Buckle up and have yourself a movie marathon.
