The Last Chase (1981) User Reviews (29)

Somewhat entertaining despite itself

[mstomaso · 5/10 · 12 April 2005]

With a silliness index comparable to that of Death Race 2000, and none of the political insight, The Last Chase starts off with two strikes against it. Nevertheless, this film scored a base-hit with me and earned the "somewhat watchable" rating of 5.

If you have ever wanted to see Lee Majors siphoning regular gas from tanks abandoned 40 years ago and using it in a Formula I Car while chased by Burgess Meredith in a Sabre Jet, this is the film for you. I'm afraid that if you have never had this particular fantasy, you might want to avoid this film. Majors plays a professional race car driver forced to give up his career and dismantle his car by a US government which has outlawed petroleum use. Now let's just play along here and lets ignore the fact that the petroleum and defense industries have been the most valuable players in the election of most of the US's recent right-wing executives, and a few of the lefties too - so let's ignore this impossibility of the basic premise - and let's not even ask how these people are generating electricity, etc. I didn't notice any nukes.... Anyway. Steve Austin...ummm sorry.... Lee Majors' character decides to leave for, of all places, California, where people have not realized that petroleum use is a desire, not a right, and are carrying on the same sort of destructive culture the rest of the USA has apparently disavowed. Believability is, of course not an issue here, as the viewer is never challenged to accept any of this absurdity.

Instead, you just let it go along from ridiculous scene to ridiculous scene. And if you start to wonder how Mr. Majors kept such a straight face throughout this film, just think back on his run in The Six Million Dollar Man. And when you get bored with the Roger Corman-like 2 minute pans across screen following the ancient Burgess Meredith and his Sabre Jet, just imagine him cackling like the Penguin, or focus on the other bizarre animal noises he keeps uttering in his aerially induced euphoria.

This film is remarkably good for what it is. The script is not bad, the directing and editing are fine, the acting is decent, and the soundtrack is even acceptable. It does get boring at times, but, given the utterly ludicrous plot, it's not nearly as bad as it should have been.

a few cool things in cheesy Canadian production

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 18 February 2015]

In a fuel-starved future, the totalitarian government has just impounded all private vehicles. Twenty years ago, the world was ravaged by a mysterious disease. Race car driver Franklyn Hart (Lee Majors) lost his family during the epidemic. Hart is now the spokesman for the mass transit system. He is being investigated for breaking into the impound lot and in danger of re-education. Ring (Chris Makepeace) is a hacker anti-authority boarding school student. Ring goes on the run from the police and gets Hart's help to drive to "Free California". The government has to stop this symbol of personal freedom. They bring out Vietnam vet Captain Williams (Burgess Meredith) and an F-86 Sabre jet.

This is a rally for driving freedom in response to the speed limit. There are a couple cool things in this movie. However at its heart, it's a non-sensical cheesy Canadian production. I like the operations room although I wonder if it's recycled from another movie. The world in the movie makes little sense but the idea of the freedom of the road is very appealing. Burgess talking to his plane is kind of funny. The movie probably needs more comedy and not the unintended kind.

The Chase is not always better than the catch

[Coventry · 3/10 · 4 July 2010]

I only have myself and my ridiculously high expectations to blame, of course, but "The Last Chase" was one of the biggest disappointments in years! Here I was hoping to see a tremendously cool car chase motion picture, in the same style as "Vanishing Point" only in a futuristic and thus even more desolate setting. In other words, a virulent and adrenalin-rushing road adventure in which one awesome hero gets chased by an increasingly larger army of dim-witted cops that continuously crash their cars or drive into ravines. Well, like sadly far too often in my life, I was wrong. "The Last Chase" is a dull and moralizing – almost prophetic – drama about the true definition of freedom and blah blah blah. The year is … um, I forgot already, but it's the not too distant future and the new fascist government prohibited all forms of private transportation due to the scarcity of oil products. Franklyn Hart used to be a racer, but now he's assigned to go from school to school and preach about how the 1980's were barbaric times. During a moment of clarity, however, he fixes his hideous old car (I think it's a Porsche) and heads out to California along with a rebellious teenager. The authorities naturally cannot allow this, but they don't have any means to stop Franklyn, so they hire an 80-year-old war veteran and his antique F-86 Jet to stop him. Let me assure you, it's a truly ludicrous sight to see a Sci-Fi movie using scenery from the Korean War. This could have been a great action/adventure flick, but instead became a boring and talkative drama with too much pretension. Lee Majors clearly craves back to the successful days of "Six Million Dollar Man" and Burgess Meredith, although vivid and outrageous, looks just as antique as the plane he's flying.

The Oil Runs Out, So The 6 Million Dollar Man Heads West

[WSAP1303 · 16 March 2003]

OK, I'll be the first to admit that this film is nothing special in the grand scheme of millions of movies ever made. However, did you ever see a movie that was barely OK production & acting wise but held your interest? That movie is "The Last Chase." Sometimes you don't want a movie to be technically correct with perfect continuity and a flawless believable story line. This again is "The Last Chase". Sometimes you see a movie at a certain point in your past and watching it again brings back great memories from that time in your life. The Last Chase has characters that you can identify with. Lee Majors plays Franklin Hart an ex-race car driver living in a futuristic Boston who is tired of the laws of an America without oil. Chris Makepeace (Meatballs) plays a brainy student who tags along and gives Lee someone to talk to in the film. Longing for the days when America has gasoline and he could race his car and be a recognized sports figure Frank sees an illegal television broadcast from California (A Free State) and decides that Boston is no longer the place he wants to be. Set in the United States and filmed in Canada, the Last Chase is a fun albeit silly romp that converts an interesting story to film. If it's listed, record it. This one's very tough to find in any format. Made by Crown International Pictures Canada, I'd plead for the DVD, but that request would fall on deaf ears as almost no one would ever remember this one. But I liked it. The Gil Melle score is terrific!

The Chase: dated production but a more prescient story.

[ChrisInMiami · 5/10 · 31 August 2022]

Was an interesting experience to rewatch this 1981 early cable staple in 2022.

Lee Majors stars as a retired race car driver in a future where gas is outlawed, there are no cars and people rely strictly on mass transit. Fed up with living under a stifling regime he rebuilds his Porsche and heads to 'free America' in California aided by a hacker revolutionary, Chris Makepeace.

In '81 it was pretty mundane 'near future' sci-fi about a U. S. that has given up its dependence on oil and gas powered vehicles. 40 years ago the future was represented as the struggle between an environmentally balanced nation and individuality/ freedom of choice.

I think the movie is actually more prescient today when the pandemic and Ukraine war have pushed gas prices over $5 a gallon and California just introduced legislation that by 2035 all cars must be electric powered. It is interesting to see the environmentalist government portrayed as fascists hell bent on stopping Lee Majors from inspiring an uprising for freedom of choice.

Also, I was a big fan of Chris Makepeace when I was a kid and wish he had continued making movies.

How many different stories were combined??

[altair42002 · 1/10 · 14 January 2010]

After watching this on the MST3K episode, I have to wonder how many movies this film borrows from. It seems to combine elements of Logans Run, Farenheight 451, Final Sacrifice and at least several others. At one point I was really expecting Cris Makepease to call Lee Majors ROWSDOWER.

I wonder if the director has any clue how many holes there are in the plot. like the fact that, even though gas is unavailable, there is plenty of it in abandoned gas stations, and the stations are located close enough together to keep an F1 race car going all the way across the country.

Awful, even as TV movies go...

[Grand · 3/10 · 2 April 2000]

Stupid, mindless drivel about a jet assembled within hours by mechanics who have never worked on airplanes (piloted by Burgess Meredith) chasing a Porsche race car which runs on decades-old gasoline sludge, driven by Lee Majors, with Chris Makepeace as the runaway techno-wiz who can McGyver spare parts into a radio receiver which can pick up all frequencies simultaneously, and who somehow learned how to acquire and use chemicals to make high explosives in a perfectly peaceful society. As moronic as it sounds. Terrible waste of Burgess Meredith, but Chris Makepeace may at least be forgiven on the grounds that this was only his second film.

Juvenile car flick about burning oil = old men reliving their hormonally challenged teenage years

[sethness · 2/10 · 9 January 2006]

This juvenile, bland flick is strictly for teenagers in old mens' bodies, desperate to relive their hormonally challenged teenage years. How ? By burning up gas and equating a fast, reckless car (or plane) with freedom.

The plot borrows heavily from Mister Rogers' neighborhood (if it were run my an oil conglomerate) and Logan's Run (if it were heavily sedated and lacked a clear sense of style).

Starring Lee Majors and Burgess Meredith this film is set in a post-gas-crisis world in which an all-powerful government doesn't want you to (*ahem*) drive your car and burn gas. Sort of the opposite of today's Enron-and-Bush, oil-grabbing, SUV-pushing government.

This juxtaposition alone makes the film laughable. But wait...there's more. Although the film is set in the future, we're not shown any signs of future technology, beyond a return to bicycles, golf carts and horses. You will believe that the future looks... exactly like today. Same clothing, same suburban houses, same green lawns as today and when the film was made. There are no solar panels, no windmills, no concessions to alternate energy.

The acting is flat and flavorless. Even scenes which could have been gritty or moving, buddy-flick, honor, romance, horror... all fall flatter than a paper doll under a briefcase.

Continuity is lacking-- the jet flown by Burgess Meredith's character changes colors and configuration from moment to moment as the filmmakers insult our intelligence with unmatched stock footage again and again.

The plot is as moronic and only half as exciting as a Dukes of Hazzard episode.

Even die-hard car-film and SF fans should avoid this film like month-old roadkill, unless you enjoy heckling Exxon executives trying to make a movie as empty as the hero's gas tank.

Not Even MST3K Can Save This!

[bezcarr · 1/10 · 26 November 2005]

Where's Michael Caine when you need him? I've seen most of the many seasons of MST3K, but this rare pre-1st season flick (episdoe K-20) is easily one of the worst movies ever made. Three "stars", Lee Majors, Chris Makepeace and Burgess Meredith, struggle through the worst batch of cinematography ever, delivering lines which must have been written by a secret Dick Cheney-style workgroup composed of Exxon and GM lawyers trying to cut funding for mass transit and energy efficiency research. Looks like it was filmed in almost total darkness, possibly on Super 8. Makes Logan's Run look like the cinematic Sistine Chapel crossed with Shakespeare. I can't imagine watching it without the commentary of Crow and Servo since it's unwatchable even with it. Clearly what's needed in Hollywood is some sort of 401K which prevents the need for actors to take on bad movies like this in order to pay for their health care. With its "rights to pollute and drive" theme, by the end, I'm half expecting to see a Charlton Heston cameo where he delivers his "cold dead hands" speech. Lee, I could have forgiven you for this in 1989, but 1981?

Weird to watch during quarantine!

[f-attali · 6/10 · 5 April 2020]

I started watching this movie on svod because of the title and Lee Majors. I was on the verge of giving up when there was this scene with quarantine and epidemic. No more cars. Well it was dystopian in '81. No more in 2020. So not the best movie ever, but worth a try.

Not great...

[catfishman · 4/10 · 8 August 2007]

I saw this movie years ago, and I was impressed... but then again I was only 12 years old. I recently re-watched it and want that time back. This film is pretty bad. While I like Lee Majors, Chris Makepeace (watch My Bodyguard (1980)if you would like to see a GOOD movie that he was in... of Meatballs (also starring Bill Murray) for some laughs), and Burgess Meredith, this role does/did nothing for their careers.

Anyway, Lee Majors character, Franklyn Hart, is an ex- race car driver who plans on driving his race car (which he had in storage) across the country to California. One Problem: The government has outlawed all private transportation. I thought the concept was OK (not the worse I've heard of), but the execution failed horribly.

This is a "FUN" movie,One that stays with me year after year.

[adesertfox · 10/10 · 12 November 2000]

I first saw this movie,shortly after it came out--1981,and since then I have had the chance to see it at least three more times,(Wish I had the foresight to record it !)I really like the character that Burgess Meridith plays,he certainly know how to throw in a "Twist" or two. I am now trying to find some film outlet,so that I may purchase this film,and add it to my Film Library,I really enjoyed this film...and although a little on the "Hokey" side,I would STILL rate it a TEN...

I actually kinda like it...

[Gislef · 6/10 · 28 December 1999]

First of all, it has a great score by Gil Melle. He did cool synthesizer stuff with stuff like The Questor Tapes and Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and he doesn't disapppoint here. Even at the dullest moments, you can count on the score to give you a jolt or two.

The main problem is that everything in this movie is just...slightly off-key. Give it a better actor than Lee Majors as the "hero," and a better old fogey/jetfighter than hammy Burgess Meredith, and do a little more than just rehash Farenheit 451 with gas instead of books, and this might have worked. Chris Makepeace is okay (although the juvie bad boy/computer hacker stereotype was already overdone by '81), and the plane vs. car action sequences aren't too badly done.

*shrug* I liked it. It wasn't better than Cats, but otherwise it works for me.

Six-Million Dollar Man goes cross country hunted by the guy who broke his glasses in the Twilight Zone

[Kai-18 · 6 February 2000]

Not as weird as it sounds but twice as unbelievable. Though this isn't a great movie it's a nice time killer for nostalgists. Lee Majors gets sick of the government who wishes to restrain everyone's need for speed. So he and a teen skip town and go cross country as a team that's like the Dukes of Hazard meets Batman and Robin (not the lame film, just the hero team). Things get nutty when Burgess Meredith is called in to take them down but he decides he won't and just pretend to. It's fun but all in all a cheese flick. Last words of the film: "this could set us back to the 1980's." That's is kinda scary when you think about it but John Hughes films would improve.

And Majors shall lead them....

[Kelly G. · 6/10 · 21 December 2009]

...in a vehicle with no headlights.

Here's the story. In a future time when the government won't let you own private modes of transportation, a former race car driver (Majors) who now has to give commercial lectures on just how great it is in a world with no cars, gets fed up, rebuilds his Porsche, and hits the long abandoned highways to reach "free" California.

A film nowhere near as good as its wonderfully daft premise suggests, the problem with it is that you can tell it's just playing it way too safe. I'm not saying it had to turn into Death Race 3000 or anything, but there are parts where you can tell cuts have been made (the very brief glimpse at some kind of sex club) to get it a PG rating, and, besides one poor old man getting shot in the chest during a raid, the encounters with the government are handled in a pretty silly fashion.

Still, the concept is fun as far as B films go, and when this does allow itself to just be what it wants to be (Major's barrel-chested macho rebel act in the first twenty minutes) it almost gets by.

That Porche is a pretty lousy choice for a cross-country escape too as, again, it has no headlights, no storage compartments for food that I could see, and an open cockpit so he can freeze to death in the mountains.

A solid and provocative futuristic sci-fi/action car chase thriller

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 10 December 2006]

Following a lethal plague which has wiped out millions of people and a severe oil crisis that has caused driving to be outlawed, an authoritarian government has come into power and set up restrictive, rigidly enforced codes of proper conduct that have made individual freedom a thing of the past. Stubbornly rebellious former race car driver Frank Hart (an appropriately stalwart and rock-like Lee Majors), frustrated with the fascist society he can't comfortably acquit himself to the stifling dictates of, decides to drive his red Porsche to the still liberated California, taking equally recalcitrant electronics whiz kid Ring McCarthy (winningly played by Chris Makepeace) along with him on a perilous trek across America's desolate abandoned highways. Shrewd regime toady Hawkins (finely essayed to smug'n'smarmy perfection by George Touliatos) assigns batty old ace Air Force pilot J.G. Williams (a delightfully spunky Burgess Meredith, howling like a crazed bloodhound and clearly having a grand old time mugging it up) to track Hart down and kill him.

An on-target celebration of rugged individualism and a frightfully prescient pre-90's prediction of mass bureaucratic conformity taken to a hideously repressive extreme, "The Last Chase" really cuts it as a rip-roaringly exciting and effective futuristic sci-fi/car chase action thriller movie ode to "stand up to the Man and to hell with the System" status quo defying rebellion and independence. Director Martyn Burke (who co-wrote the nicely thoughtful script with Roy Moore and C.R. O'Christopher), aided by Gil ("Blood Beach," "The Manipulater") Melle's jaunty, swelling score, keeps the pace rattling along at a crisp, steady tempo, occasionally pausing for moments of quiet introspection and character development which ensure that the film has plenty of heart to spare (the rapport between Hart and McCarthy is especially breezy and appealing). Moreover, this feature's portrait of a seriously uptight, anal retentive, overly rule conscientious no-fun near future society has uncanny parallels to nauseatingly stuffy 90's political correctness, thus giving the picture a topicality and resonance that's sadly still quite timely even today. An extremely good, pleasingly provocative and rather scarily prophetic science fiction film.

Compelling in many ways

[docmarvy · 7/10 · 29 June 2023]

Most of these user reviews are correct. It's a very watchable, if not very technically adept film. But I think the one thing that makes it stick in my mind is perhaps the most believable dystopia of any of this era & genre of film. Usually these movies have over-the-top dystopias that hit you over the head with their awfulness. This portrayed a very believable type of banal evil dystopia that's more frightening in a way. Because it doesn't seem so far fetched.

Beyond that, Lee Majors was really great in this. He wears his muted grief and dissatisfaction with the status quo on his face in the first third. While not dialog-heavy, the characters have a lot going on internally and it translates. Well acted + believable dystopia of the near future + surreal buddies road comedy + TV Movie production quality (but top tier soundtrack) = this film. Worth a watch if you can track it down.

Fine Canadian tax shelter production

[Noam DePlume · 12 January 2001]

This was a staple of 1980s Canadian television, not because it's particularly good (though I like it), but because it was made with Canadian dollars. Thus allowing it to fit in with the country's strange (to non-Canadians anyway) Canadian Content broadcast regulations.

Lee Majors takes time out inbetween his Six Million Dollar Man/Fall Guy gigs and races around the countryside near my neck of the woods, while Chris Makepeace blows the head off a statue real good and Burgess Meredith talks to his kite. All this, plus a decent supporting role from Harvey Atkin as the orgy-frequenting conformist co-worker who frowns upon Lee's free-thinking spirit. What's not to like?

Adding to the enjoyment is playing the game of "spot the location" and comparing places I've been to to how they're shown in the movie. The sight of dozens of extras bicycling around the Yorkdale shopping centre on their way towards a big clean Utopian bubble city (or a matte painting of it, anyway) always raises a smile.

Avoid the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this, it's really not funny, although the last line "aw, no wonder it sucks, it's Canadian!" is a good one.

Small and big effects yet still big on plausible story...

[michael-regan · 7/10 · 2 December 2005]

A global pandemic has circulated the planet, killing millions of people. A special government agency has decided that the rapid spread of the disease is thank to the ever-growing mass transit of the world. The solution--eliminate any form of mass transit and deem it to be illegal. Simple? Not if you are a race car driver.

Lee Majors is a race car driver in a future where mass transit no longer exists and must now travel around and preach the 'evils' of the automobile. Once he comes across a young anarchist played by Chris Makepeace he begins to realize that things don't have to be this way and literally digs out his Porsche to drive it across the country as a symbol of the ridiculous nature of the existing law.

Not too implausible considering all the pandemic threats of today and the ever increasing speed of today's mass transit. Not a high-budget big special effect movie, but highly recommended.

An interesting testament to perenial political fears

[gdeangel · 8/10 · 9 October 2014]

Not many folks today go around thinking about Barry Goldwater's slogan from the 1964 Republican convention. I wasn't even alive then, but as a child who spent more than a few sick days with a TV, a VCR, no cable, and a couple Uhf bootleg movies, one of them "The Last Chase", I understood that even though "extremism in the defence of virtue" may not be a vice, I could tell you at age 8 that it was a bad policy to follow.

Others have noted the various issues that come up in this movie. The energy crisis that isn't solved by new technology, but by the iron fist of regulation. Social control achieved through restriction of movement and herding people into cities. "Re-education" as a stand in for jail. Devolution of government into authoritarianism. An Ebola like plague laying waste to America.

These issues get paraded through the plot in a pretty clear black-and-white line up. Fast cars = good. Government bureaucrats = bad. And for that reason, this film has largely been written off as a mere adventure film, one that stacks up poorly against its contemporaries. But strip away the zooming car shots and barrel rolling areal sequences, and you get something that is a little bit GATACA, a little bit Vanishing Point, but with a very 1980s Reaganesque ideology.

You also have a few shallow side plots that are meant to break up the diadacticism. The creation of a father-son bond. The hopelessness of losing your purpose in life. The emotional baggage of causing a fatal crash, or losing your loved ones to premature disease.

Today all those things would be played out with color filters and weeping string accompaniments-over-dialuage that are the hallmark of post LORT "adventure" films. Back then, that was out of the question. Protagonists like square jawed Lee Majors looked you squarely through the camera lense and gritted out lines like "I've done a lot of losing in my life; I don't want to lose you too." All actor. Maybe not the best actor, but no fluffy BS. Solid performances by Majors and Meredith here, and nothing but praise for George Touliatos's Hawkins. Performances backed up, not tread upon, by a rich and powerful musical landscape which is, in my opinion, Gil Melle's best.

The story is simple: a man and a boy on the road, the latter there to expose the complex layers of the protagonist's character. Today, the story would be about a bunch of tweeny kids wrestling with themselves through emotional full-nelsons that would put Hulk Hulgan to shame. Got to play to the youth market if you want box-office $$$.

All I can say it, the conflicts in this movie make it well overdue for a remake, but thankfully the wrong people haven't made one. Redone in the minimalist style of "Road to Paloma", the 917 CanAm Spyder could come roaring to life again for an epic remake, but probably end up a commercial flop. Redone with typical Hollywood sensibilities (I'm thinking "Rollerball" now), it would still be a commercial flop. So there it is... if the film sounds interesting to you, nothing for it but to start looking through those crates of VHS bootlegs at the next yard sale you drive by... until, that is, the oil runs out.

Soon To Be Heralded As Prophecy

[BarneyRubbleNLittleChina · 7/10 · 30 May 2017]

The skeptics called it hokey and cheesy. The nay-sayers said it could never happen. Start stockpiling your oils now, we will run out of oils before the end of Trump's term. This movie is a blueprint, nay ... a PROPHECY of our immediate future. Watch it now before we run out of oils and you'll be too busy surviving and you won't have time to eat popcorns and watch movie. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Also, be warned that the 6 Million Dollar Man and the kid that needed a Bodyguard and that old gruffy man are in this. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

p.s. Red Barchetta is a cool song by that Canadian band Rush. COINCIDENCE? i think not ...

Steve Austin and exploding cactii: need I say more?

[leaf71 · 22 June 1999]

Seeing a movie like this gives me a feeling deep in my bowels that someday, I might become an action movie hero. This is an incredibly horrifying movie about the future that could be. I was compelled to watch this movie from front to end, hoping that somehow this movie could get cheesier, and my wishes came true. It is great to know that once an incredibly bad movie gets worse, that it comes out on top again as an entertaining vision of our fears as they were in the early-Eighties.

Terrific film for those who fear government interventionism in daily life

[armando-33 · 10/10 · 1 May 2006]

Have seen this movie and think it's terrific! Here's what Laszlo Uriel "laszlo-laszlo" (San Francisco, CA USA) has to say about it. It sums up my thoughts as well.

One has to wonder whether this movie was the inspiration for Al Gore's desire to ban internal combustion automobiles. In any case, this movie shows the kind asinine totalitarian regime Socialists seem to be trying harder and harder to turn the United States into. It gives us a taste of the sort of top-down, "obey the rules or else", brainwashing type of society we could find ourselves in if we're not careful.

Having been 'convinced' over the years to submit to authority and preach the 'goodness' of the new oligarchical system compared to the 'badness' of the old individualistic system, Lee Majors' character, an ex-race car driver, find encouragement in a few short pirate television transmissions. "Radio Free California, calling America" inspires him to dig up and reassemble his hidden race car, and flee the defacto prison the east coast has become.

In true neo-Democrat/Socialist style, he is ordered stopped at any cost, preferably by being killed. A single Vietnam War aircraft and its pilot (Burgess Merideth) are pulled out of mothballs and a bottle, respectively, for this task.

Other means are also employed along the way to try and stop the car and its occupants, including a Stalin/Mao-esquire slaughter of a group of innocent people who took them in to give them medical care.

Now in 2005, since California is literally going broke spearheading the Union away from individual rights and toward Socialism, the idea of "Radio Free California" returning to machines and to personal liberty takes quite a leap of faith, but it's a fun 3000 mile trip across the country nonetheless.

As the story goes, the Social dystopia was able to take hold after a disease wipes out much of the population. Since the time the film came out, 1980, the likelihood of such massive devastation from disease has only increased. And never has the proverb "Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely" been any truer than it is today.

I don't agree for a second that the point of this movie was to encourage the worship of the internal combustion engine or petroleum products. But yes, in the case of Lee Majors' character and the race car, it was a gasoline engine that was the appropriate, if not the only tool capable of escaping tyranny.

If this movie is one big ad for big oil companies, does that mean every movie about police who use firearms to help arrest evil-doers, or which shows someone defending their own life with a firearm, is just a big ad for Colt or Glock? Loners who are ticked off at the system trying to pound them into behaving like everyone else will like this movie. I loved this movie! But if you're into that whole "ride public transit or go to jail" thing, you'll only like the first 15 minutes of this movie...so have your Michael Moore tapes ready.

A prophetic movie?

[Turnsix · 8/10 · 4 June 2023]

A movie about a post peak-oil world, or perhaps one were we realized the damaging effects of carbon-based pollution, leads to gas cars being banned by a totalitarian government that now runs the eastern half of what was the United States. Throw in a backstory of a global pandemic that managed to kill several hundred million people, including the main character's family, just years before the movie takes place. Our hero, Franklin Hart decides he wants to escape to Free California. The ex-race car driver manages to steal enough parts to rebuild his Can-Am style race car, and heads west with a brilliant teenage rebellious kid. In the meantime, the government finds a Korean War veteran that's still living, and tasks him to fly his old Sabre jet in pursuit of Hart.

Move Over Stuntman Mike! Here is LEE!!!,

[ballplayer270000 · 10/10 · 22 December 2008]

I remember seeing this film at the theater with Robin Williams' Popeye" as afternoon double feature movie matinée when I was kid.

This was low budget Canadian film marketed as American film (Lee Majors made a couple of Canadian movies like this in early 80's such as Agency with late Robert Mitchum)

The shortage of oils leading into ban of automobiles, epidemic wiped out the populations, and people are forced by government to live in suppressed society with ridiculous rules and restrictions. The Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors, plays former race car driver who rebuilds his Porsche that was hidden underneath of his garage and breaks free to California where people are start living in free society like used to be. Former World War jet fighter played by late Burgess Meredith is after him to kill.

This movie has so much potentials and a good plot , but it gets lost or misguided to make a solid movie. It just failed to develop those interesting issues/setups/surprisingly great characters into some what successful movie. However that didn't stop this movie to become fun/enjoyable vintage guilty pleasure low budget sci-fi action flick. Movie stardom hungry Lee Majors with mullet, wearing silver racing jacket (I think stunt man, Mike, from recent Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof might be got the idea from Lee's character, Frank Hart. Well, looks wise....) did his own car stunts with red Porsche racing car. The cross country chase between Porsche and jet was all old school stunts, and it also captured beautiful Denver/Rocky Mt. No CGI on this!!!

This movie also features Chris Makepeace from My Bodyguard and Vamp. I really like to see this movie available on DVD sometime soon!!!