Movie Story Type: Chase
There are genres (e.g., Action, Comedy, Drama). Cross genres (e.g., Action-Thriller, Comedy-Science Fiction). Sub-genres (e.g., Romantic Comedy, Action Adventure). And then there are what we may call movie story types. In Hollywood development circles, people use them as shorthand. If you go here, you will see several that we’ve featured on GITS including Contained Thriller, Road Pictures, and The [Blank] From Hell.
This week, we look at more movie story types. Today: Chase.
Chase movies have long been a standard story type in Hollywood movies. It’s the fox and the hound, cat-and-mouse, hide and seek, tag you’re it, one character chasing another, pursuer and pursued.
Some examples of chase movies:
North by Northwest (1959): A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): Chased by a relentless posses, two robbers in the Old West flee to Bolivia when the law gets too close.
The French Connection (1971): A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a drug smuggling job with a French connection.
Jaws (1975): When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977): The Bandit is hired on to run a tractor trailer full of beer over county lines in hot pursuit by a pesky sheriff.
Alien (1979): Investigating a suspected SOS signal on a distant planet, the crew unleashes a monstrous alien on board their ship.
Terminator (1984): A human-looking, apparently unstoppable cyborg is sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor; Kyle Reese is sent to stop it.
Romancing the Stone (1984): A romance writer sets off to Colombia to ransom her kidnapped sister, and soon finds herself in the middle of a dangerous adventure.
Midnight Run (1988): An accountant is chased by bounty hunters, the FBI, and the Mafia after jumping bail.
Run Lola Run (1998): A young woman in Germany has twenty minutes to find and bring 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend before he robs a supermarket.
The Fugitive (1999): Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of murdering his wife, must find the real killer while being the target of a nationwide manhunt.
Catch Me If You Can (2002): A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor.
Hanna (2011): A 16-year-old who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.
One benefit a writer has in dealing with a chase movie is pace. It’s often easier to build and sustain narrative drive in a pursuit story as the goal is imminently clear and the pressure on both parties intense. Also chase movies generally exist within a compressed time frame which can help to maintain a high energy level.
From a viewer’s standpoint, an interesting psychological dynamic is the ability to shift perspectives — from the character being chased to the character in pursuit. This tacking back and forth can create a richer emotional experience as we can end up identifying in some ways with both characters.
Finally one thing to bear in mind when writing a chase story: There is a premium on twists-and-turns in the plot. Remember it’s a cat-and-mouse story so you want to create complications, roadblocks and reversals in the way of both characters, so that at points the pursuer is on top, then the character being chased, back and forth, making for an interesting, surprising and ultimately entertaining ride.
What chase movies would you add to this list? What appeals to you about this type of story?
[Originally posted October 19, 2011]
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