Hollywood's Gun Fights

[Yohan]

I was watching a movie the other day- typical hollywood movie. Person's got the finger in the trigger guard, etc. etc. In one of the scenes, the main character is shot at from a distance of about 35 yards- and she draws her snubby revolver and fires. In the typical H fasion, the bad person falls- the camera focusing in on the dead body to reveal that the heroine (I hope I spelled female hero, not the drug) had placed a well placed shot smack dab in the middle of the head. Is this a possibility? She had her back turned when she was fired upon, and she fired as soon as she turned around. What type of training exercises can you guys do to simulate this?

While we're at this, what are some ridiculously unrealistic gun handling we have seen?Let me get a few cliched ones out of the way

-Sniper rifles. Till I began to get interested and read up, I thought that to shoot a sniper rifle, all you had to do with get your cross on the target and fire when it was centered. Then came the knowledge of windage and drop calculations.
-Infinite ammo. Yeah, we've all seen this. Interestingly enough, many realistic video games now help dispell the myth of the infamous infinite ammo.

Let's hear em.

 

[Feanaro]

It's possible. If you are a crack shot, time slows down for you and you have an accurate weapon. But it's POSSIBLE all the air in the planet could move to one side. But will it?

Also, many of the "realistic" games aren't too realistic... such as Vietcong which I just tried the demo for. You don't rack the slide for the Colt .45, don't pull back the charging handle on the Thompson, etc. And while it happens sometimes, continuing to fire a machine gun accurately after being hit three times with 5.56mm shots right to the chest sounds a little... wrong. And Counter-Strike... guh.

My one cent.

-People with handguns always win unless they are the villains. Somehow a hand-gun gives them a blanket of immunity against SMG toting villians.

 

[Jeeper]

My all time movie pet peeve is when a person has someone at gun point and then after holding them at gunpoint proceeds to rack the slide. I always ask myself why they were holding someone with an empty chamber. The other is cocking the hammer on a 1911. THey point it at them with the hammer down first and then later they cock it.

 

[PATH]

I love Hollyweird where you can fire two Desert Eagles at the same time and not have any recoil. Geez, I wish I could do that!

 

[Art Eatman]

I generally tell folks that any gun handling seen in movies is wrong. Very few movies show anything "real world".

As for a possible hit from "turn and fire", consider the old IPSC standard "El Presidente". You start with your back to three targets, from a distance of seven yards. Turn and draw; fire two shots on each target, reload and repeat two shots on each target. I've seen it done with nearly-stock 1911s and IPSC Major ammo in 5.0 seconds. I grant that a turn-and-shoot at 35 yards is rather Hollywoodish--but it's doable.

My pet peeve is the "sniper" who assembles his take-down rifle, gets all set up on his sandbags: And then twiddles with the knobs on the scope! Double-duh!

Art

 

[cool45auto]

I like the one where the gun's at slide lock and the star is still yanking the trigger and you can still hear gun shots!

 

[sonny]

I can't stand it when someone has a gun pointed "hammer cocked" on someone elses head and then decides to let them live and uncocks the hammer while still pointing it point blank at the other guys head......irresponsible of hollywood!
I am convinced that these totally irresponsible gun habbits are imitated in real life and lead to injury or death.
I would sign a letter or pettition to hollywood execs pointing this out..... if it was well thought out and written in a (We are watching you and you better get you're act together) sort of way.
Anyone else?......Anyone feel like writing it?...It would be interesting if it was sent certified mail so that we could say ...told you so

 

[megatronrules]

I for one can't stand most movie gun handling it is plain out wrong! Finger on the trigger,hammer down on 1911's and hi powers alike(although the gun could be at half cock but it still urks me to no end) but hollywood being as uninformed as they are I doubt they even know what half cocked is. They don't even know the 4 basic rules of gun safety the list goes on from there and gets worse.

That being said these action movie directors probably pay a small fourtune to so called "weapons specialist" who don't even know a 1911 is a singe action gun that is meant to be carried cocked and locked Also the thing about lowering a hammer on a gun while its pointed at someones head? Who came out with that one? Speaking of this last one whenever I use the decocker on my beretta 92 I ALWAYS,ALWAYS! point the gun in a safe direction the reason being? Simple the safety/decocker on this gun and any other with a decocker moves the firing pin out of the way of the hammer to safely drop it.

So if the decocker where to ever fail and not do its job the hammer will strike the firing pin and the gun goes of. So these idiots who might say "oh its only a decocker I can point whereever I want while I decock it its safe" They need to learn gun safety and read the instructions to the deadly weapon they own.

 

[Rockrivr1]

I always get urked when the actor has an incredible never ending supply of ammo and can fire forever without reloading. The one that sticks in my mind most often is Commando with Arnold. (not even going to attempt his last name)

He's toting an M60 around and one scene he has about 10-15 rounds left. He then jumps over a wall and low and behold he has a whole belt of ammo wrapped a couple of times around his forearm. Or later in the movie when he's in the bad guys house, he's firing away with a 12 Ga. Marine Magnum and gets off 13 shots without stopping.

The building blowing up with obvious dummy standing outside is alway good for a laugh as well.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

Commando is still one of my all-time favorite movies, but I agree the bloopers are side-splitting. How about the turned over Porsche 911 that becomes their new ride? As they take off from the side of the road and round the curve, the damaged side is no longer damaged. How about the wire tied to Solly's leg when Ahnold is holding him up with one arm? The cardboard cutouts during the explosions were cheezy to the extreme. There are many more. But it is and always will be one of the best shoot-fests.

 

[Standing Wolf]

More reasons my television continues to keep valuable shelf space in the garage from going to waste.

 

[dinosaur]

Andre` Brauer (Homicide) plays a contract killer in some cheesy but funny late night cable movie. He along with his cousin chase our hero into a field shooting at him. Andre` has a Glock while cuz has a revolver. The slide locks back on his Glock as the GG falls down. Typical. The next scene should show the slide forward after a phantom reload, right?

After a converstion with the guy who hired them, Andre` points the Glock at the GG`s head and the slide is still locked back. I`m thinking, "Oh boy, they really screwed this one up" when Andre` notices this too. He turns to cuz and says, "Give me your gun, mine`s jammed."

This was funny on so many levels.

What happened to an M1A later in the movie hurt my heart so bad though.

 

[cordex]

My favorite is when a bullet (be it from a 9mm or a .338) strikes sparks off a car that someone is using as cover. Doesn't even damage the paint job. Soon as a bullet hits someone, though, they've got to go dancing and spinning and flipping around like a ballerina on meth.

Or when a bullet goes through the windshield leaving a nice neat hole, but the rear windscreen is untouched. Possible, but not at the angles incoming fire is usually directed.

 

[SoDFW Jason]

Anyone ever seen an FTE in a movie?

How about throwing the weapon away when the mag is empty?

 

[PATH]

Come on the best is when the character throws a perfectly good pistol at something or someone that is impervious to bullets.

Question? Why would the character think that the pistol itself will hurt whay they just shot a gazillion times? Me, I am not throwing anything away. I'll reload and give it another few tries!

How about the heroine who is never able to shoot the baddie. "You won't shoot me ", he says. Wouldn't you just love to seem some lowlife say that to someone like Tamara or Runt?

I find myself screaming at the TV encouragement of a graphic and animated nature.

My favorite is a movie where the cop is pursuing some huge crocodile through drain sewers. He asks for rockets, dynamite, grenades, and as an aside says "oh yeah, you'd better get me a Glock 19". I am sorry Glock lovers but that made me laugh so hard my ribs ached the next day.

 

[Jrob24]

I just saw the end of an amusing but dumb movie called soldier boyz. A veteran and 5 recruits attack an enemy jungle base. They shoot 50 BG's and take no casualties.

 

[scottgun]

Pay attention to how many times a character racks the slide. once before putting in their holster, once when they draw, once before shooting and a couple of times in between. Of course, you will never see an unfired round ejected The racking of the slide makes a cool sound, kind of like a car tires squealing. In Hollywood, the more the better, even if it makes absolutely no sense.

 

[280PLUS]

did i ever tell you,,,

my uncle the retired metro-dade leo was the original technical adviser for the miami mice, (oops i mean vice) pilot ?

he quit under protest because of the way they wanted to portray police officers in action. as in they wanted to hollywood it up and he wasnt going for it.

something about there not being too many examples of raging gun battles with jamaicans in the streets of miami on a weekly basis,,, among other things,

he said, "I taught crockett and tubbs everything they know about being cops. how to enter a building, how to cuff a suspect, etc."

"they were ok guys until the show took off and they went hollywood"

and, lastly, "while the show was popular they couldnt do enough for miami, inner city kid stuff, charity appearances and other community services but once the show went off the air everybody disappeared and miami was totally forgotten about"

or words to that effect, anyhow...

 

[Moondancer]

My pet peeve is that you just have to shoot a car, any car, and it will immediately go up in flames, then just seconds later explode into a huge fireball! Yeah, right.

The most memorable blooper was watching a B movie where one of the bad guys comes around a mausoleum in a cemetary at night and racks the slide on his shotgun. Only when he steps out into the light, we see that it's a side-by-side double barrel (sawed off, of course). Ruined the whole movie for me.

My wives quickly realized that the only way they could get me shut up in a theater about gun bloopers was to threaten me!

 

[Stevie-Ray]

Come on the best is when the character throws a perfectly good pistol at something or someone that is impervious to bullets.

Like Superman, right? In the old TV series, a BG would empty a gun on him, and he would stand there with his hands on his hips. Then the BG would throw the empty gun at him and he would duck.:banghead:

 

[PATH]

Bingo!

 

[Esky]

Don't knock Audie Murphie!

But... although he is/was a for real war hero, he made some absolutely hilarious movies. He can't act at all (makes Chuck Norris resemble Olivier) but he did some cowboy Westerns that just about killed me-- from laughing so hard!

One film has, while the opening credits are rolling, a jet plane going across the sky, with contrail, clearly visible. That's just the beginning, it gets even better. Later he's in a hotel (Audie's the good guy, natch) on the second floor, having a shootout with multiple BGs who are outside the hotel, firing in at him through the open door. Audie's at the top of the staircase.

While he's there, he shoots at least 50 rounds at the BGs without having to reload (being the Good Guy, he only needs one gun!); hundreds of rounds are fired at him, but none have any effect at all except for two. Those two somehow hit smack in the middle of some square patches on the wall next to our hero, causing holes in the exact center of the patches. How's that for shooting! The guns are all Western six (hundred?)-shooters of course.

What really got my rolling on the floor, though, was Audie's decision to run down the stairs, shooting furiously all the way, around the front of the hotel counter (all this time in full view of all the dozens of BGs, who are shooting madly to no effect at all,) where he finally crouches down behind the counter to reload his gun.

Even better, he then retraces his steps and goes back UP the stairs to where he was before! And amazing as it sounds, the plate glass window in the front of the hotel never gets even a little bullethole in it! One bad guy that Audie shot had to stagger from the front of the hotel, around a hitching rail, across the street, around another hitching rail, clutching his chest the whole way, before finally falling into the horse trough where he dies! Priceless.

Thanks for this thread-- I had almost forgotten that movie, it was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, all the better because the humor was totally unintentional.

If anyone can remember the name of this epic movie, I'd be very much in your debt (I doubt that it will be re-released on DVD, though!) Would love to see it again, it was such a hoot.

Esky
ps- we all know that all these details would be true if, instead of using six-shooters, the cowboys had been using assault rifles. They really can fire hundreds of rounds without reloading; I know this is true because the Brady Bunch say it is!

 

[TechBrute]

I recently saw a movie where someone was pointing a Glock at someone and threatening them. When the vic did not comply, the aggressor cocked the hammer for effect.

 

[Calanctus]

I was flipping channels a while back, and saw Keenan Ivory Wayans as some sort of uber-assassin (how can you tell? He was completely tacticaled-up in all black, like a Brigade Quartermaster catalog threw up on him). He puts together his sniper rifle from a suitcase kit , twiddles with the scope knobs , then sights in his target, several blocks away on the ground (Keenan is on the top of a skyscraper). Then, he opens a small case, containing the ammunition for the rifle. A single round, with an ICE bullet . That's when I continued to the next channel....

 

[Zer000]

I just saw the end of an amusing but dumb movie called soldier boyz. A veteran and 5 recruits attack an enemy jungle base. They shoot 50 BG's and take no casualties.

Heh, I saw that too. I particularly liked the guy going up against baddies with AKs with two sideways pistols. The sideways one handed AR shooting was classic as well.