Rush said he "shot the film partly in a Tom and Jerry style, with lots of car chases and car crashes, and the heroes are being indestructible. The audience is laughing and enjoying themselves and suddenly Freebie would drive around the corner into a marching band of kids, and just sloughed through them. The audience thought "Wait a minute. What am I laughing at?", and the style of the film had changed to stark realism. There was a lot of game-playing in the picture."