Shaker Run (1985)
Article 5987 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-4-2021
Directed by Bruce Morrison
Featuring Cliff Robertson, Leif Garrett, Lisa Harrow
Country: New Zealand / USA
What it is: Car chase movie

A New Zealand research scientist steals a deadly bio-agent from her lab because the military wants to develop it as a weapon. She hires a race-car driver to transport it across the country to her contact, but he doesn’t know how much trouble this will cause him.

I could skip reviewing this one if I wanted to, but it’s been a while since my last review and it is listed in one of the John Stanley guides. Even there, they dismiss it as little more than a car chase movie, and it has to be said that the bio-agent (the only fantastic content in the movie) serves purely as a gizmo maguffin; no one would be chasing anybody if it didn’t exist. As a car chase movie, I found it moderately entertaining, if nothing special. At least there’s a sense of humor to the proceedings and a lot of the movie floats on Cliff Robertson’s charisma. Still, you do have to wonder about the gullibility of someone who thinks they can prevent the bio-agent from being developed by the military by turning it over to the CIA, but that particular thorny issue is ignored by the end of the movie.