The lockdown has spared us from yet another Fast & Furious film – watch these turbo-charged picks instead.
It’s another small lockdown miracle!
F9, the latest star-overstuffed Fast & Furious movie, had been due to overwhelm your multiplex – and your film-watching resolve – from today.
Instead, we get a temporary reprieve from contrived, overblown and weightless action – and can quench the need for speed with these thrilling streamable offerings:
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CLASSIC – BULLIT (1968)
One turtlenecked Steve McQueen flying through the streets of San Francisco in a 1968 Mustang is more cool and thrilling than The Rock and his globe-trotting explosion-loving CGI-aided cast of thousands could ever dream of being. Around Bullit’s legendary 10-minute car chase is a hard-boiled police thriller that to this day stacks up with the best of them.
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CROWDPLEASER – DRIVE (2011)
Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn may have broken our hearts with their hollow follow-up Only God Forgives, but it is better to have loved and lost. The cool jacket, the pulsating soundtrack, the moody streets of LA at night, that opening scene… we will always have Drive. More style than substance, but what style.
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WILDCARD – MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)
Unapologetically nuts yet utterly satisfying, the fourth installment in the series is already a classic, just five years on from its release. A spectacular chase from beginning to end, with impossibly complex stunts and minimal CGI, it was worth the gruelling 9-month shoot in the Namibian desert. Visceral, non-stop action in a fantastical yet immediately immersive world, with Charlize Theron in one of the most badass action roles in recent memory.
MS