Shaker Run

We were trying within a sort of comic-book, fast-moving style for as much reality as possible, so it was fast-for-fast and stunts-for-real. We were also after a general certificate, so I had much pleasure in expunging most blood, violence (except auto-violence) and overt sex. It made me feel quite wholesome.

– Bruce Morrison, in the programme for the 1985 London Film Festival

Bruce Morrison’s film is fast, furious and not exactly an aesthetic experience, capable as the playing is. Without question, though, it has the best stunts ever accomplished in a New Zealand picture, some of them quite breathtaking.

– London Film Festival director Derek Malcom, 1985

Please drive home safely.

– Message to viewers at the end of the credits

Fantasy car violence.

– Director Bruce Morrison’s describes the film’s style, in Onfilm (volume 3, no 2)

Director [Bruce] Morrison straps a camera to their souped-up Trans Am, hurtling along the highways of South Island, pursued by a grisly assortment of baddies, CIA agents, and military. The whole thing is really an excuse for a series of finely executed daredevil stunts, but what holds it together is the tongue-in-cheek direction and humorous ensemble playing.

– Reviewer 'WH' in Time Out (London), 10 September 2012

Competent driving scenes, great stunt work, lots of action, helicopters, gorgeous New Zealand scenery, a late-film action sequence on a boat(!), and even a man on fire escaping a van explosion (wait, what kinda budget did they have??)…in a brainless chase movie like this, you must deliver the genre goods when things slow down, and Shaker Run does that.

– Reviewer Jason Hink, on website Movies and Drinks

[Peter Bell] performed some hair-raising stunts, one of which would not have been attempted by more than one or two other people in the world. The stunt concerned called for Bell to drive a blazing van — it had just been hit by a rocket — over a four metre cliff, rolling it at the same time . . . his main concern was that the fire would so obscure his vision while driving that he might not correctly hit the ramp that would make the vehicle roll and he would have wrecked the van without getting the shot.

– Writer Steve Locker-Lampson on the work of stunt coordinator Peter Bell, Onfilm, December 1984, page 23

The stunt that worried him . . . was when he had to jump a car from a ship onto the wharf 11 metres away — not a long jump by stunt standards but then he didn't have very much space to get up speed for the jump. . . . A safety net was rigged underwater between ship and shore, half a dozen divers were standing by in the water and Bell was wearing breathing apparatus . . . but if the car failed to make it onto the wharf and instead hit it head on at somewhere near 60kph, anything could happen and his main worry was that he could end up strapped into the car in 10 metres of water, unconscious, and that he could well drown before the divers could get him out. The stunt went off perfectly...

– Writer Steve Locker-Lampson on Peter Bell's ship to wharf stunt (seen in this clip), Onfilm, December 1984, page 24

For [Cliff] Robertson it served its purpose as a cinematic reclamation project. Shaker Run was his first starring role since the Columbia Pictures scandal. Robertson rebuilt his career. His nemesis, former studio head David Begelman, was convicted for grand theft and fined $5000. He never went to jail though he did have his $1.4 million in Columbia stock options taken away . . . Robertson’s career rebounded after Shaker Run and he became a working actor again.

– Shaker Run production assistant Loren Kantor on how the film helped rejuvenate Cliff Robertson's career after he exposed the David Begelman cheque-forging scandal, Splice Today website, 3 January 2023