A Melbourne father has been left shaken after a terrifying botched carjacking outside his daughter’s school on Tuesday afternoon.

The 48-year-old man was waiting to pick up his daughter from the elite Kew school about 3.30pm when he was approached by two men who allegedly threatened him with a knife.

The pair jumped into his Mercedes, but incredibly couldn’t start the vehicle, forcing them to run to the next street, just 200 metres away.

The alleged offenders then hid in residents’ bushes and backyards for hours, sparking a major police operation in the normally quiet suburb.

Both men emerged around 8.50pm, more than four hours later, and were captured on camera walking to the end of the street where police were camped out waiting.

The pair then ran back down the street with officers in pursuit, eventually being arrested as they allegedly tried to flee through backyards.

Local residents described the dramatic scenes as police searched for the suspects in the neighbourhood.

“I heard all the yelling of them trying to get the person down because they were hopping from house to house and on roofs and you could hear them getting on roofs,” one resident told 7NEWS.

“The cops were like, ‘if you see anyone yell out, stand out and yell that you see someone hiding in the bush up there,’ which is like the route that I walk home sometimes and if I was by myself and that happened I would have been so scared.”

Another resident expressed frustration about safety in the community.

“The government has to do something about it. Seriously, we just need to feel safe in our own community, especially in our own houses,” he said.

The two men, aged 40 and 33, have now both been charged with carjacking among other offences.

The father was shaken by the incident, but was not physically injured.