Robert Nagle doesn't watch car chases like the rest of us. A former rally car driver with a degree in mechanical engineering, Nagle is now a heavyweight in the Hollywood stunt world. So while all we popcorn munchers watch movies to "ohh" and "ahh" at things both fast and furious, he's watched for the details.
"It's a good thing for me. It makes me look at things closely to see what works and what doesn't. What looks good to the naked eye doesn't always look good on camera," Nagle says. Fresh off filming Fast & Furious 6, out in theaters Friday, Nagle provided us with some expert insight on ten memorable movie car chases — some classic, some horrible, and one with the world's worst sound effect. We started with a movie he worked on:
DRIVE
ESQUIRE.COM: How hard was it to pull off this chase?
ROBERT NAGLE: The whole piece was pretty difficult and near the end it gets tougher and tougher. The objective was to really sell that Ryan was driving the car, but he's not. I actually spun the car with a rig I designed. I'm talking to Ryan the whole time, counting down to him and telling him what movements he should make based on the physics and everything else going on.
GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974)
ESQ: This one is such a classic.
RN: Yeah, I think I was 10 when it came out and as a kid it was awesome. Looking back on it now, I still enjoy it. It kind of looks like they just went out and grabbed what they could without really planning. There's almost a guerrilla style of filming.
ESQ: Do you have to make any special considerations with all those extras standing around?
RN: We're pretty particular on who get close to the action. We need them to be stunt players because things can go wrong and we want guys to be able to react to what's happening.
BLUES BROTHERS
ESQ: I especially like this one because it's the rare indoor car chase. Thoughts?
RN: I just wish I was there because it looks like a lot of fun. Just look at the juxtaposition of when they're in the car and it looks so calm and then you go to the exterior view and stuff is flying everywhere.
ESQ: Is there any special skill to getting stuff to really fly through the air like that?
RN: Just have a big car and a lot of stuff. It'll go flying.
BULLITT
ESQ: Another classic here. What makes this one so special?
RN: I love watching this. All those jumps are real. They had limited resources so they had to really prepare the cars to survive all that. I love that Steve McQueen did a fair amount of the driving. It's great to see an actor get out there and do that.
ESQ: Each time one of the cars goes into a tire-screeching turn I think it's going to flip over.
RN: It takes a lot more to turn a car over than you think. That's why I'm always amazed at how the general public is able to crash cars. But they're cornering those cars at 100 percent of their capability. It looks scary and it looks fast because it is.
RONIN
ESQ: This one is great because they're whipping around Paris, which looks like it presents so many more challenges than the big American streets.
RN: It's one of my favorites. It's one of the few chases that was done with the drivers running flat out pretty much as fast as they can. It really sold it. And similar to Gosling in Drive, their reactions and the physics are right. Everything is right. Your eye would know the difference.
ESQ: There's actually a stunt driver sitting next to the actors and driving in this chase. How often do you see that?
RN: It's pretty rare because it's a complex setup and there's a pretty big liability. The actor is in there and he has to sell the product, so if he gets injured that becomes problematic.
CASINO ROYALE
ESQ: There's a making-of video of this on YouTube. Apparently they wanted one roll and ended up getting seven.
RN: They did a great job with that. I think they used a cannon on this one. It's a large air cylinder. There are two different ways to flip cars like that. One is an explosive charge that drives a 6- to 10-inch piston into the ground to lift the car up. That type results in a really violent rollover. This one is smoother so I'm pretty sure they used an air cannon. It gives a smoother pickup of the car.
ESQ: This kind of flip is never happening in real life, right?
RN: Physics aren't going to allow a car to turn over like that. But the way they did it picked the car up so soft it doesn't look fake. All in all, I think it worked.
THE BOURNE IDENTITY
ESQ: It's weird seeing a Mini involved in a chase after so many powerful sports cars.
RN: It was the perfect car for that. When you get into these little tight spaces you get a lot of foreground, too. Another thing I notice is the editing and the timing on all the stunts is spot-on. If you look at this and go back and look at some older car chases, you'll see that in the older chases they telegraph what's going to happen. You don't get that in this one. Stuff just comes at you and it happens. The timing is spot-on along with the editing and it really gives that boom, boom, boom energy.
ESQ: Apparently this chase is cobbled together from a bunch of different parts of Paris that don't connect in real life.
RN: That's pretty common. Directors pick sections to run the action through. It doesn't always interconnect in a way that works story-wise so we have to fool you guys a little.
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
ESQ: So this is the first of a few ridiculous ones. What's happening here?
RN: I don't know for the life of me why they decided to use that sound effect. But the stunt is real. It's basically a ramp-to-ramp jump. You'll see as they come up, one side of the bridge is curved to get the car to rotate. And on the other side it's the opposite so it can catch the car.
XXX: STATE OF THE UNION
ESQ: As absurd as that last one was, at least it used a real car. Any thoughts on the CGI chase here?
RN: Can I have that 10 minutes of my life back? It's unwatchable for me. It's just all CGI. I couldn't see anything that wasn't.
ESQ: And clearly the physics of this are completely impossible.
RN: I get that that's what they want, but the whole look of it is just...
SOME INDIAN ACTION MOVIE
ESQ: Lastly, there's this clip from an over-the-top Indian action movie. What stands out to you about this?
RN: The physics are completely wrong on all the stuff he does. There's a point where two cars explode as they pass him. That's just not going to happen. Cars explode and they go in the air and they fall and just miss him. But you can tell that's put together afterward. It's shot with a double exposure.
