Weapons in the Movies
 

I found myself being annoyed by the way guns are handled in movies and TV shows.
I'm not talking about The Matrix kind of action where it's obvious that you're watching a comic book.
But war, cop and other movies where the people are supposed to be pros and do stupid things.
For that matter there have been scenes that were made more intense because people were using the weapons the way they should be with all the side effects included.
I really liked Le Femme Nikita until an episode where they were in the middle of a shoot out and turned their Glocks sideways like some street punk.
Maybe it looks cool but it's stupid.
Saving Private Ryan did a good job when weapons were used.

Any movies that pissed you off?
Or that impressed you a lot?

If you watch at the end of Braveheart when the Scott's are running toward the screen in the last shot, you can see all the rubber blades wobbling as they run, that one pissed me off.

I liked the one where he pointed the gun at the other guy and shot him... It's all good!

I have a thing for hong kong style action flicks, not because it's realistic... but because the lead flies...

I dunno I don't mind so much however when they are so obviously done wrong, it sucks. Like take for instance when the prominent female actor in the movie is supposed to be a badass, but she looks like a belimic model that couldn't lift a candy bar to save her life. Like in the first Mortal Kombat movie, Sonya was supposed to be a tough-as-nails, military trained, special ops badass, but she looked more suited for a Calvin Klein ad. But then you look at say Linda Hamilton from T2 and just looking at her you can tell she's quite capable of shoving her fist down your throat and breaking your spine. (Obscure Arnold Schwarzenegger quote)

One thing that irks me, is when I see a person in a movie using a Colt 1911, and the hammer is not even cocked! Then of course the person holding it shoots it! Colt 1911's have to have their hammers cocked to be fired. Or like in movies with M-16's. You will see them firing over and over. But when they show a close up, the dust cover is closed! What the hell!

band of brothers really impressed me, right down to the clip ejecting

It would be nice to see a bad guy use anything other than a desert eagle.

Well...
 

You get to see Morpheus with the GL-18 (I believe) the really neato full auto-glock.
hmm.. villians... Well in the hong kong action flick "The returners" the villian favors a VERY large revolver. The villian in phone booth uses a dragunov although you don't get to see it till the end. The rifle he claims to use is not the one in the apartment (which looked like a dragunov)... damn I love keifer sutherlands voice... Alot of villians don't use the DE. Think of the movie Snatch or Lock stock and two smoking barrels. Nice variety of ghetto english weaponry. Or desperado, I wonder does the DE even show up in that movie? What about desperados precursor El Mariache? What about The Usual Suspects? The 5th element... The rock... Reservoir Dogs (wussy guns IMO)

I got this lift from flipping through my collection just now...

Speaking of weapons in movies.
What do real military vets have to say about the movie Black Hawk down?

I always thought it was kinda funny in movies where someone is shooting a handgun... runs out of ammo and the slide locks back, yet they keep on firing. They graphically put in muzzle blast to try and cover it up.

As for people turning their gun sideways (original post), there is acutally a reason for this. It originated from car jackers. People who cracked their windows didnt have enough room to put the gun in the cab. If you turn the gun sideways the gun will actually fit in that little space. Heard this from a friend of mine who used to be a car thief. I thought that was kinda interesting.

That's why I like TFP, I learn something new every time I'm here.
If a carjacker does it in a movie, I'll be cool with it.
If someone who is supposed to be a trained assassin does it I'm going to change channels.

I guess they never thought of just shooting through the glass?

The bottomless clips, UZI's that can fire upwards of 30,000 rounds and maintain a cool barrel without reloading, two pistols that fire off 5 or 6 dozen shots, only to run out simultaneously when the good guy and bad guy are face-to-face.

My favorite is the "3 shots fired, 5 enemies dead" number, but you only see that in westerns and 80's movies.

I always like how ammo never seems to run out in movies. I was amazed to see how in a Steven Seagal movie two pistols somehow turned into automatic machine guns.

I scrutinize cop shows like you wouldn't believe...I love how people always run around with their fingers directly on the trigger. You can always tell which movies had technical specialists working on the set...if you see an actor with his finger on the slide, off the trigger, then you know they were shown the correct way...

My other favorite is when you see someone reload, then rack the slide. If the slide locks open when you're empty, all you have to do is load a new magazine, and release the slide. No need to rack it again...that'll just waste a round.

Dog Soldiers handles weapons fairly realisticly.

Saving Private Ryan and Heat were my two favorite movies for firearm accuracy.

Strangely enough, I DO get very irritated with the Matrix for poor FX even though it is one of my all time favorite SF movies. I especially hate the begining where the cops bust in on Trinity and you hear this massive bunch of guns being cocked, even though a cop would already have his gun cocked and ready to fire in that situation (I guess the foley artists have to stay employed). I also hate seeing Neo using mini-uzi's in the lobby but then cut to the floor where there is .223 brass falling.

Other annoying Hollywood exploits:

-bad guys that fall down and die with one shot
-people being blown backwards several feet from gun and rifle shots
-bottomless magazines


I'm sure I'll think of some more...

I was endlessly irritated by that fact. It was so obvious that it was 5.56mm casings (i'm metric.... as you can see..... GET WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD!!!..... sorry... end of rant. if you've ever needed to convert from lb.ft... you'll get my pain.. ) when he was shooting ?9mm?? weapons, or handguns and submachineguns...

How about the people that hide behind empty barrels. If you've used empty barrels for target practice........ I know i wouldn't hide behind one.....

i've seen the dust cover one a few times.

MUZZLE FLASH!!! real guns don't have that huge muzzle flash. thats what flash suppressors are for. Perhaps at night. but even then, its not that huge 5-pronged thing you tend to see...

If you quibble on the matrix for realism
 

In certain effects your missing the point. I noticed the rifle vs SMG casing thing in the lobby shootout also. That's just sloppy, but big booms, flying bodies, and invincible heroes are what make movies fun. If we saw what it was really like it would look quite boring and uneventful with a body falling thump on the floor after being hit by a silenced shot...

And you should notice that *sometimes* the matrix movie is shot with realistic ammo restrictions. You can count in some scenes, the real question is where trinity keeps her ammo and other toys that tight suit.
[EDIT]
A day will come when I no longer have to edit EVERY post for spelling...[/EDIT]

If you remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies, one of them has Data holding a phaser and he says, "Lock and Load", then you hear the sound of a bolt action lock and load.

I think they were actually Scorpions, but it annoys they hell out me as well...

The trailer for the new Lara Croft movie has her holding two Semi-Auto Pistols....and dropping both empty mags at the same time....how the hell is she going to reload when each hand is at eye level, and they both have a weapon in them.

I wouldn't want to be caught with two hands full of empty pistola.

Hollywood? Whatcha gonna do? She does have other "weapons" in her arsenal though...36C's I think they are :)

I won't go see the movie for defensive pistol marksmanship tips that's for sure.

-b-

One thing that I really hate happens all the time on Cops. The cop catches a bad guy and finds a gun on him. THen the cop takes the bullets out of the gun, walks over to the camera and says something to the effect of "These are hollow point bullets, designed to cut through our bullet proof vests."

Because she's got these nifty gadgets that extend a new mag at just the right position and angle that she can just push the gun over the mag. Who knows how they're triggered, etc. etc.

Yep, what mtsgsd said.
There is a shot of it in the first movie, don't know if they show it in the second. Haven't seen it.

Why does the cop do that? Doesn't he know better?

People not only firing heavy machine guns from the hip, but firing ACCURATELY, ala Sly with his M60 in Rambo II.

Nicholas Cage in Windtalkers. Taking on endless hoardes of japanese soldiers, whether it be running through a field with a thompson in one hand, taking out snipers at range, or his trusty colt, taking out entire squads of badguys, nary a miss.

the finale where he and his charge have an artillery round land at their feet, yet they stand up and walk away..

a bazooka round fired into a hillside, effectively taking out the ENTIRE hillside..

theres just so much wrong with that movie its hard to contemplate. absolutely one of the most annoying films ive had to sit through, from a gunsmanship point of view.

I agree with all of you on this topic but it makes money having those cheap things imported into the movie and thats all they care about. And I also bet they don't expect such gun enthusiast to be watching the movie so closely.

Just thought of another one:

Lethel Weapon 4 - The good guy has been fireing his glock. The bad guy reaches over and removes the slide.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the glocks I've seen, in order to do this, you must drop the mag first.

The hollow point one reminded me of this. Cop shows and media in general - the insinuation that Teflon-coated 'cop killer' bulets somehow magically slide through body armor.

Three words - "Nuclear Hand Grenades"

In Blackhawk Down when the Delta force dude throws a genade 50 yards through a window. Yeah right. If he could throw like that he would be in the majors.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I'm just running on memory here, but I thought that he was carrying a Beretta (possibly a 92F, that's what we carry on duty). With a Beretta, field stripping is actually pretty simple, a button, a lever, and pull it off...not that I think it could be done as easily as depicted, but it's not that difficult...

I think in Snatch the big guy w/ the DE fired about 10 rounds w/o reloading when they were in the bar with the russian guy. In my counter-striking experience DE's only have 7 rounds, but meh i could be wrong. Best part ever tho, "Your gun says "replica". mine says Desert Eagle point-five-oh. So piss off." :p

I'd have to look up mag capacity, but I'm betting the DE you're talking about is chambered for either .44 mag or .357 mag (the other two calibers a Desert Eagle comes in.)

the carjacker style of pistol shooting is... well... bad if you're using anything larger than 9mm. you will simply break your wrist or smack yourself silly. it's sheer skeleton-work, and the way you tense when you fire. Even a spec-ops or a bodybuilder would be silly to fire large-caliber pistols sideways. Not to mention that your sighting would be WAY off.

Ive seen the "hiding behind empty barrels" and bottomless magazine things too many times before. I also dont like the movies where a bad guy puts on a "silencer" and suddenly it sounds like absolutly nothing, especially on the higher caliber stuff. Lets get some advisors on the sets about this stuff! I don't know about the real professionals, but my buddy gets real mad at me if I call a suppressor, a silencer.

As for tilting weapons when you fire (gansta style), when fireing offhand, Massad Ayoob recommends tilting the weapon at a 45 degree angle to strengthen your grip (sort of "half gangsta").

Regarding silencer/suppressors: There is only one truely silent firearm in the world, that is the DeLisle silenced carbine. It is modified Enfield Mk.4 in .45 caliber that apparently cannot be heard even by the firer when it is shot. Pretty spiffy...

It may be, but can you field strip it without removing the clip first?

Yes, on a Beretta, the slide can be removed without dropping the magazine as long as the safety is off. I would NOT attempt this though...taking off the safety and attempting to remove the slide on a loaded gun is not a safe practice. (Recap: Possible, not advisable)

My favorite is Ahnold in Comando- the part when he's running behind the bullet-proof shrubs and killing 5 bad guys per round fired off the hip. You ever notice how the good guy never gets to shoot the bad guy? He's always got to die ninja style.

Band-o-brothas was great as far as firearm accuracy goes...