By Robert Scucci
| Updated
What does Nicolas Cage’s Dr. Stanley Goodspeed commandeering a yellow Ferrari F335 Spider in The Rock, Jordan Peele’s Rell Williams getting in a high-speed chase in Keanu despite his lack of driving experience, and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Chance Boudreaux hopping onto a random motorcycle in Hard Target, among many other action stars in similar situations have in common? They all embody the action movie vehicle problem that nobody ever talks about because there’s no way that the average person can just strap in, start the engine, and slam the transmission into fifth gear without hesitation.
I know we’re talking about action movies, and all of the above scenarios require the willful suspension of disbelief to allow a story to move from one sequence to the next as seamlessly as possible, but I’m here to argue that even action heroes – even the ones who possess specialized talents that drive their story forward – need a second to adjust their seats and mirrors, or at the very least get a cursory glance at the multitude of varying switches and toggles that are found across so many different makes and models.
It’s A Matter Of Muscle Memory
Last year, I really started thinking about the action movie vehicle problem because I bought (read: started financing) a new car that has a gear knob in the center console instead of the traditional stick shift that I had been used to operating for the past 20 years.
If I’m being honest, it took me a solid month to get used to the fact that I have to twist a little toggle to shift from park to drive or reverse. Additionally, I now have a backup camera, and I’m still putting my arm around the back of the passenger seat, twisting my neck to look over my right shoulder, and looking out the back windshield to parallel park even though I no longer have to do these things because 20 years of muscle memory has conditioned me to do so.
I’m still figuring out how to adjust the seats because there’s a toggle to change the height and angle of the seat, another toggle to move the whole seat forward or backward for the sake of adjusting how much leg room I have, and yet another toggle to adjust how much the back of the seat can tilt forward and backward.
Action movies have a vehicle problem – except for the Fast and Furious movies, or any other intellectual property that heavily relies on cars – because I cannot, and will not believe that somebody running from a hail of gunfire can hop into a random car or boat, or jump onto a snowmobile or motorcycle (that all happen to conveniently have the keys in the ignition), and get involved in a high-speed chase, avoiding death every step of the way.
Let’s Bring Some Realism Into The Mix
Solving the action movie vehicle problem is no easy feat, however, because it’s all a matter of pacing. Nobody wants to see Kyle Reese, woozy from the effects of time travel, flip through an owner’s manual before either fleeing from or rushing toward a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator because he’s racing the clock, and the future of humanity is at stake.
But what if he did?
Would an action hero taking 30 seconds to make sure he or she has optimal driving conditions really be a detriment to the storytelling? Could action movie heroes successfully avoid getting in a 50-car pileup if they took the necessary time to ensure that they have proper lumbar support before kicking it into high gear?
I think so.
But, then again, if they don’t level an entire city block, then the commissioner will never chew out the action hero for following nobody’s rules but their own, and how the mayor is going to give them hell when they get the damage report.
So the next time you watch an action movie, I urge you to think about the vehicle problem that every single one of these films has. What’s more, the next time you let somebody use your car and you’re silently cursing their heart for messing up all of your settings, I want you to think about John McClane in hot pursuit, fiddling with the radio knobs because he can’t find the classic rock preset and the stereo settings are all over the place.
