10 iconic movie moments when construction was the star

Construction isn’t just hoardings, hardcore and ham butties. Sometimes it’s glitz, glamour and the gilded streets of Hollywood.

For as long as there has been movies and TV shows, the construction industry has been there, too. Whether it’s building sets, a prominent cameo, purposeful brand integration or offering up a few would-be actors, these are the hands that built ‘Tinseltown’.

We’ve all been there. Driving down the road with a fellow builder or friend or family member on the tools, and those all-too-familiar words are spoken: “I built that”, gesturing upward. Well, today, we all get to say it, as we review some of construction’s most recognisable appearances in cinema.

For instance, in the penultimate action sequence between Batman and the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, released in 2008, the Bovis logo can be seen at the summit of a building currently occupied by the villain (played by the late Heath Ledger), which is still under construction.

The filmmakers used Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, where much of the movie was shot, for this section of the film and as part of the wider Gotham City skyline in general.

Bovis Lendlease was appointed general contractor to build the (at the time) $847 million skyscraper, which was coopted by Nolan and his team for the film, before construction finished a year later in 2009.

Or, in Skyfall, the 2012 James Bond action/thriller starring Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem and directed by Sam Mendes, where 007 ‘borrows’ a custom-modified Caterpillar 320D L excavator for the high-stakes train sequence, shot in and around Adana, in Turkey.

After taking a bullet in the shoulder, Bond uses the CAT bucket as a shield against another hail of gunfire from his rival. And when the target uncouples the carriages to escape, Bond uses the arm of the machine to grab the fleeing section of the train and stay in the chase.

The scene was created using practical effects and wire-aided stuntmen, aboard a set piece travelling at 64 kmh.

Sticking with 007, six years before Skyfall made it to the silver screen, director Martin Campbell helmed Casino Royale, in 2006, with Daniel Craig walking into the iconic gun barrel title sequence for the first time.

Early on, Bond is seen pursuing a bomb-maker through an active construction site in Madagascar, with stuntmen executing jaw-dropping parkour throughout and across the 14-storey structure. Among the plant machines the audience can see is a New Holland W190B loader, which Bond later violently ploughs into part of the building to intimidate his quarry.

The star MI6 agent then scales the main boom of a telescoping crane with four hydraulic extensions, to reach a higher level of the building which is still in steel frame and continue the precarious foot chase atop two flat-top tower cranes provided by Lee Lifting Services and City Lifting, both based in the UK.

Again, all the stunts were done practically by professionals without the use of CGI.

Yet another crane “chase scene”, this time appearing in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, released in 2003, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Jonathan Mostow.

Aside from travelling at an unrealistic speed, the boom of a Demag AC 395 telescopic mobile crane (wide load) is positioned at a 90-degree angle from the driver to sweep other vehicles and buildings from the street in a display of utter carnage and fire. John Conner is attempting to flee the terminator driving the massive rig in a car – and Arnold’s character is aboard a motorcycle, wearing his iconic black leather jacket and sunglasses.

The crane, modified for the shoot with steel bumpers and internal roll cages, weighed approximately 140 tonnes and was provided to the crew by the Hollywood Champion Crane Service.

In the 1986 sci-fi/horror, Aliens, directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, there is a yellow CAT branded mech-suit loader, for which Weaver’s character, Ellen Ripley, has a “Class 2 rating”.

When Ripley enters the cab to operate the hydraulic claws and ‘powerlift’ some cargo, the Caterpillar brand can be seen embossed behind the character’s head as she pulls down the steel harness.

In the climax of the movie, Ripley confronts the deadly Xenomorph Queen alien in the exoskeleton (believed to be a “Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader”), saying the now famous line, “Get away from her, you b****!”, before battling the creature and blowing it out the ship’s airlock.

Yet another appearance by CAT in film is in the 1990 cult classic horror/comedy, Tremors, directed by Ron Underwood.

Valentine McKee, played by Kevin Bacon, uses an old, rusty Caterpillar D8 crawler tractor, or “bulldozer”, pulling a flatbed, to escape the underground sandworm monsters, known as Graboids, which are picking off the local townspeople.

In an earlier scene, a roadworker operating a generator-powered jackhammer in the Nevada setting, suddenly halts his drilling when a blood-curdling scream emanates from beneath his feat, before the horrific creatures drag him away to meet his grizzly end.

Often, Hollywood production companies will use a real or recently completed commercial development for their movie sets, rather than constructing fake city blocks or high-rise buildings from scratch, which implicitly spotlights the contractors that built them.

For instance, in the 1988 action movie, Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis and directed by John McTiernan, the Nakatomi Plaza building used in the film is really the Fox Plaza in Century City, California, which, at the time, was still technically under construction.

While in the fantasy world of the movie, vest-wearing NYPD cop, John McClane is battling bad guy Hans Gruber (played by the late Alan Rickman), in the real world the 34-floor Fox Plaza building, designed by Pereira Associates, was still being finished by main contractor, Al Cohen Construction, for billionaire Marvin Davis and 20th Century Fox.

Locke, released in 2013 and written and directed by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders; Taboo), is a tense, psychological drama about a construction boss trying to remotely manage a high-stakes concrete pour while his personal life falls into disarray.

Tom Hardy, the only on-screen character, conducts a total of 36 phone calls from his car, where the entire film is shot, as foreman, Ivan Locke, over a two-hour drive between Birmingham and London.

Hardy delivers a tense and gritty performance, supported by Olivia Colman, Andrew Scott, Tom Holland and others, as the voices on the other end of the line, on the eve of the biggest moment in his (Locke’s) career.

Based on the Lego line of construction toys, The Lego Movie, released in 2014, written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street), is an animated adventure/comedy in which Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt), a master builder and construction worker, is chosen by his society – “Bricksburg” – to right the wrongs of a tyrannical businessman (Will Ferrell).

The film, which features mini construction sites, hoardings, cranes and foundations, was inspired by the visuals of Brickfilms, a form of stop motion animation using construction set bricks, though The Lego Movie itself is not a stop motion feature.

It’s about an “ordinary guy” making the world around him a better place.

The Lego Movie was dedicated to Kathleen Fleming, former director of entertainment development at Lego, who died in 2013.

Finally, construction workers-turned-Hollywood icons. Did you know, before his breakout roles in Star Wars and Indianana Jones, Harrison Ford was a self-taught “chippy” in LA? Tom Welling, who played a young Superman in the hit series Smallville, worked on site before he became the DC hero. And Michael Caine was a plumber’s apprentice before he was bitten by the acting bug, as did Bob Hoskins. And, before he was the original James Bond, Sean Connery was a bricklayer.

Honourable mention: The Navigators (2001), directed by Ken Loach with screenplay by Rob Dawber.

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