Hangover Cinema: The Chase

In the days where cable was still charming, the afternoon movie was a very specific brand. While putting off starting your day, or recovering from the previous night’s misdeeds, you’d flip to TBS/TNT/WGN/USA or any other low-stakes, non-premium channel. Behold, a movie you’d never even heard about. 

A lot of these movies stuck with me, maybe from repetition, but I'd like to think it’s because whatever got them greenlit in the first place shone through an otherwise somewhat underwhelming presentation. In an age where streaming is quickly becoming the only option, I’m remembering what made crappy cable tv a sometimes rewarding surprise. 

The Chase

Charlie Sheen had a huge climb after his breakout role in Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Not quite meteoric like some of his contemporaries, but he definitely found his place in the Hollywood mainstream. For some reason, Sheen is often remembered for his daring, Nicholson-wanna-be dramatic turns in movies like Wall Street, Young Guns, Terminal Velocity, The Rookie, etc... and how drab and unconvincing he was as a serious actor. I hate to be a buzzkill, but I’m not here to argue that verdict, he is a pretty rough dramatic lead. 

For my money, Sheen always stuck out as a comedic actor. Between Major League 1 & 2, Hot Shots 1 & PART DEUX, many Scary Movie sequels, and his career-ending but wildly successful time as a lead on TV’s Two and a Half Men, he was always more of a hilarious straight-man presence. For example, I have a very special place in my heart for the garbage man comedy co-starring his brother Emilio Estevez, and comedically underrated Keith David Men at Work (but that’s for a future installment). Sheen’s timing for humor is impeccable, he can go dry amidst nonsense or goof off in bold Zucker brothers fashion. He fundamentally understands how he plays on camera as a joke.

The early 90’s were tough on many of the 80’s breakouts. The landscape was changing from huge balls-out action and raunchy comedies to the indie boom that defined the next generation. Sheen, like many, struggled to find a place that resonated with audiences. With movies like Beyond the Law, and Navy Seals he became a contender for worst mainstream action star. He regularly failed to recoup budget at the box office and was often derided critically for his stone-faced, witless, unrelatable characters. 

Despite all of this, Charlie Sheen is the star we get that valiantly carries this comedy vehicle (no pun intended). 1994’s The Chase is a fast paced, indulgent crime romp that looks at the desperation of societal delinquency, the media frenzies that took hold during the decade, and expectations of status in the post-80’s comedown. 

Sheen plays Jack Hammond, a wrongfully convicted schlub who gets caught up in a kidnapping after stealing a car. The opening of the movie is quick, lean, and convinces us right out the gate that Sheen is a bumbling criminal. When a pair of cops recognize his car from a radio call, he quickly grabs Natalie Voss(played by Kristy Swanson), a young heiress in the wrong place at the wrong time. The movie is immediate in showing its tonal hand by having almost everyone fumble during the fierce encounter. Sheen even uses a candy bar in lieu of a firearm to fake his way into taking Swanson hostage. He hops in her red BMW with her, and we’re off to the races. 

What we find out quickly is that she is the daughter of Dolton Voss(played by one of our all time favorite dads, Ray Wise) He is clearly an amalgam of Donald Trump or Richard Hilton; a titan of industry obsessed with his image, and outraged that the police have let his daughter become caught up in this situation. The chief of police is scrambling to appease this character, throwing every resource he has at the pursuit. 

Directly on the trail of Sheen and Swanson is a pair of cops played by Josh Mostel and Henry Rollins(in his first film role). On today of all days, there’s a producer and cameraman in their backseat filming a COPS-style documentary. Rollins is playing up his grimacing rage for the camera while reacting to all of the carnage. It’s a visceral, hysterical performance. Rollins notably did his own driving against Sheen’s stunt driver in actual Houston rush hour traffic(without a permit) for several sequences. 

With the police hot on their trail, most of Sheen and Swanson’s interactions (and eventual romance) happen right in the front seat. While their setting remains static, the movie builds around them with a media frenzy. Although The Chase’s release pre-dated the famed OJ Simpson car chase by a few months, the depiction of the 90’s ACTION NEWS phenomenon was fairly prescient. While not quite the scathing indictment of infotainment as something like, say, To Die For( 1995), the film does point almost all of its eye-rolling and irony at the swarm of newscasters breaking the story. 

What starts as a typical traffic-copter report ends up covering a majority of the outrageous kinetic sequences that are meant to glue the audience to their seat early on. As we see different stations taking on the story, the speculation and attempts at coverage grow wilder. Newscasters standing on the shoulder of the highway, or even approaching the moving vehicle while strapped to another. With no real context to the events on the ground, their guesses to explain the mayhem are played for pure idiocy. Unbelievably, the news is able to capture a truck full of medical cadavers that spill out all over the highway, including onto the hood of Rollins’ cruiser. They also catch various destructive maneuvers, often accidental, that make Sheen look like a madman calculating behind the wheel. The most explosive stunt features Anthony Kiedis and Flea(yeah that’s right, more musicians acting). The stakes are climbing higher and higher for Sheen while he’s simply trying to get out of sight.

While he and Swanson continue to get to know one another, Sheen confesses his past as a wrongfully convicted bank robber(from confusion about his career as a birthday party clown). Even before this chaotic and very public accidental crime spree, he was a victim of surreal circumstances and incalculable bad luck. He’s playing it totally straight in this confession, and in his chemistry with Swanson. Their romance culminates in a bizarre sex scene where she climbs on top of him in the driver seat, and they fly into the clouds. 

As the authorities and news crews assemble at the border awaiting Sheen, he decides to give up. We’re treated to a daydream of him committing suicide by cop(set to a very dramatic “The Next Life” by Suede, on a soundtrack otherwise rife with 90’s Epitaph pop punk). As he snaps out of it, Swanson has taken the reins and pulled a hostage of her own in order to negotiate their escape into Mexico. Normally this sort of ending just screams Stockholm syndrome, but it’s a nice bow on top of a movie that doesn’t take any of its crimes seriously (as they’re mostly happenstance). 

This tight, 90-minute farce keeps its pace until its climax, and then satisfyingly exhales with an ending as flimsy as its initial premise. The results leave everyone but the put-upon crook and his witty heiress girlfriend holding the comedic bag. The other characters are in a totally different movie about an insane gunman kidnapping a princess, and leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. It’s hard to point to any shaggy comedies like this in the past 20 years that have shrugged off exposition simply to connect the dots for a handful of intense set pieces. The one defining characteristic of any hangover is a splitting headache, and this is an afternoon movie where you can turn your brain off and simply enjoy a bunch of idiots trying to catch a once-great, and hilarious Charlie Sheen.