The Mini Cooper S and the Big Screen

Going to the movies has always been an escapist’s refuge from the mundane daily activities we wade through all the time. The hours we spend in the theater watching fast-moving, intense, extreme, and powerful films, provides entertainment that just cannot be experienced anywhere else. We love the exhibitions of martial arts. The kicking and jabbing of the protagonist portrayed against the evil personified by foreign agents and countries. It always seems that the good guy wins at the time when all seems lost. Another adrenaline rush comes from car chase scenes. Film history has a few such movies that have us gripping the arm rests for relief. InBullitt, starring the late Steve McQueen, he takes his Mustang on a ride around San Francisco that would seriously put us in dizziness and fright that we could experience fits of clamor. Gene Hackman in The French Connection plows through the streets of New York, dodging and evading all sorts of obstacles to continue his chase of the antagonist. Wonderful editing in both films show the perils of just what a person could do in times of high stress. If needed to, could we do that?

In the last twenty-five years, the greatest and most intricate of car chase scenes was in the movie, The Italian Job. This movie employs the use of the Mini Cooper S in chase scenes that will knock your socks off. Driving down brick stairways, careening off buildings, and avoiding head-on collisions, there is never a dull moment. The whole scene is just shy of fifteen minutes. You come out of that theater hoping to find a Mini Cooper S in your parking space. Now wouldn’t that be fun?

These Mini Coopers steal the show. According to MotoringFile.com, The Mini Cooper S has been named best movie car of all time. These tiny but powerful roadsters are everywhere in The Italian Job. Flying through tunnels, dueling helicopters, racing trains, and maneuvering through cobblestone stairwells are just a few of the adventures in which they participate. The one thing that is different than the original movie, which came out in 1969, is that the actors themselves do many of the stunt driving thrills and spills.

The Mini Cooper S is the silent star of the picture and gets no star billing at all. But when you think about it, the story revolves around it and maintains the frenzied pace of the plot. Although it has no speaking line in the script, the Mini Cooper S is the unsung star of an otherwise mediocre film.

Car chase scenes have been popular from the Keystone Cops to Fast and Furious. There is just something exciting about a car chase scene that makes the adrenalin coarse through your body and put you vicariously up on the movie screen, too.