Gun Related Stupid Movie Mistakes

[wildenout]

When you cock the hammer back on a revolver, you get that beautiful spring tightening sound the "ccccaaaadddcccaaaccllicckk" you know what I mean. Movies drive me INSANE!!! When the badguy, or goodguy pulls out his gun and gets ready to fire, (no matter what kind, especially polymers for some reason) and you hear that noise. NO! Bad Hollywood. Especially cop movies where they are so close to being correct, and the cops are carrying clocks or another polymer gun. Then it makes that sound and I just want to vomit....
Side note, if you watch "The Other Guys" with Mark Wahlber and Will Ferrell. In the Scene where Samuel L. Jackson and "The Rock" are briefing everyone after their big bust, "The Rock" has a beautiful 1911 in his shoulder holster, then they flash to Will for a whitty comment; then back to "The Rock" and the shoulder holster is empty! Ha then back to Will, and back to "The Rock" and it's back in, but now has the hammer cocked lol.

 

[tyusclan]

Lots of right handed people are left eye dominant, and vice versa. My father was right handed, but nearly blind in his right eye, and he shot rifles, shotguns, and handguns very well using his left eye.

My father, two of my uncles, my wife, and my son-in-law are all right handed and left eye dominant, and they all shoot left handed.

With a handgun I can see using the right hand and aligning the sight with the left eye, but shooting a long gun that way would be extremely awkward. You could see that with Bridges trying to shoot the rifle that way in the movie.

 

[Smoke]

Lots of right handed people are left eye dominant, and vice versa. My father was right handed, but nearly blind in his right eye, and he shot rifles, shotguns, and handguns very well using his left eye.

What tyusclan is saying is that the way Bridges was holding the gun he was "aiming" with a nonexistant eye.

 

[Smoke]

First that he doesn't check the gun, second that he doesn't immediately feel the weight difference. It's covered in the film when he chastises the guy for sitting behind a desk so much he forgot the feel of the weight difference, which is plausible i guess,but the difference in feel is substantial. Enough that you'd check the gun even if you normally didn't.

When I go to the range I unload in my car before going up to the firing line and I can feel the difference immediately.

I want to know who in the Hell keeps their gun in the bathroom?

 

[Smoke]

65 posts in and no one has mentioned Rambo firing a LAW in the cockpit of a Helicopter with out blowing it up?

 

[Alpo]

When I go to the range I unload in my car before going up to the firing line and I can feel the difference immediately.

I want to know who in the Hell keeps their gun in the bathroom?

Well, I don't keep "MY gun", which implies I just have one, but I have "A gun" in there. 3" 65. If the MZBs kick in the front door while you're on the pot, having a gun on the head of the bed don't do you a whole lot of good.

 

[Wyatt Burp]

In the scene that made John Wayne a star, his intro in Stagecoach, he spin cocks his 92 carbine. One of the best scenes of all time in a western. But when he hands the gun to the Sheriff riding shotgun he levers it one handed again which means he just lost a live cartridge and put the gun in the same loaded condition it was before. Yeah, I know, the gun wasn't even invented yet, but I let him slide on that one.

 

[jaykellogg]

I read that when they filmed "The Godfather" that real gangsters were watching the filming and sometimes taught the actors how to hold or handle their guns.

My pet peeve is the westerns filmed in the '50s and '60s. They are all set in the victorian period, yet an awful lot of them have "modern" attitudes about women. I enjoyed them as a kid, but I cannot stand to watch them today.

 

[rwsmith]

Easy......

Lethal weapon!.

Riggs is in a heated passionate argument with his partner about suicide. Riggs pulls out his beretta 92 and starts talking about killing himself. says "I carry a special bullet too! hollow point so I'm sure it blows my damn brains all over the wall!" or something like that. His partner then Pulls out his S&W .38 and says "use mine, more powerful! through the chin!"............since when is .38 more powerful than 9mm....thought they were about equal lol

This is an easy question to answer. Thirty Eight is a bigger number than nine, silly. Just like a .45 magnum is more powerful than a .44 magnum.

 

[Smoke]

In the scene that made John Wayne a star, his intro in Stagecoach, he spin cocks his 92 carbine. One of the best scenes of all time in a western. But when he hands the gun to the Sheriff riding shotgun he levers it one handed again which means he just lost a live cartridge and put the gun in the same loaded condition it was before. Yeah, I know, the gun wasn't even invented yet, but I let him slide on that one.

I noted essentially the same mistake in El Dorado. Robert Mitchum (the Sheriff) shoots at the bartender, cocks his Winchester,(No shell casing is ejected BTW) points it at another bad guy and cocks it again and again nothing is ejected.

Another one I like is when the bad guy points the gun at someone, threatens them and then chambers a round to show that "he means business".

 

[Smoke]

Well, I don't keep "MY gun", which implies I just have one, but I have "A gun" in there. 3" 65. If the MZBs kick in the front door while you're on the pot, having a gun on the head of the bed don't do you a whole lot of good.

I see your point but I think that was the french guy's only gun.

 

[SgtLumpy]

Just to inject a point of sanity -

As others have mentioned, LOTS of things are technically incorrect in movies/TV. We just pick up on the gun things. Radios and paramedic stuff are a constant source of "They're doing what?" to those that know that stuff, for example.

Another point is that guns in Movies/TV are almost never real guns these days. For liability reasons (and perhaps other reasons) they are dummies. They may or may not rack, rotate, cycle, hammer move etc. They certainly don't shoot, blanks or otherwise. All of those sounds are added later by the Foley artist.

But all that parade raining aside, here's a couple of my favorites -

Dirty Harry Magnum Force - The classic silenced revolver weilded by David Soul. Also the gunfight/chase scene at the end of the movie with magnum loads being fired in the close confines of the lower decks of an aircraft carrier.

Both 24 and Hawaii 5-0 (both new and old) - Someone holding an autoloader rubs his/her hand across the gun butt and we hear the sound of a revolver cylinder spinning and clicking.

Burn Notice - "She uses special high pressure, armour piercing ammo in her 380 auto"

Lots of shows - Pull the slide of your auto loader back about half a cartridge length and proclaim "I've only got three bullets left".

Every cop/spy show I've ever seen has snipers on the roof of a two story building across the street from where the bad guys are going to pull up in their bad guy cars. Those long barrel BLACK rifles with supressors sticking out from the edge of the WHITE roof and the outline of the sniper's head never seem to get noticed by the 3 or 4 bad guy bodyguards that get out of the car first.

Not necessarily gun but cop related - I've never seen a TV/Movie cop issue a traffic ticket realistically. It takes the TV cops roughly 7 seconds. They don't get any info from the violator. They simply tear the ticket off their ticket book and aggressively thrust it at the person. No copy info from D/L, usually no signing by the violator.

I don't own a TV but once in a while I see some of this stuff on NetFlix or Hulu. I've always found it interesting that with all the "incorrect" technical stuff happening, they still have extra "behind the scenes" shows to show us how they achieved such "realism".


Sgt Lumpy

 

[growr]

The ONE actor that I have a great deal of respect for in his gun handling skills and authenticity is Tom Selleck. I have never seen him mis-handle anything from his 1911 to his Sharps rifle n Quigley.....have you guys?

Randy

 

[Smoke]

The ONE actor that I have a great deal of respect for in his gun handling skills and authenticity is Tom Selleck. I have never seen him mis-handle anything from his 1911 to his Sharps rifle n Quigley.....have you guys?

Randy

I was watching an episode of Magnum PI on Nick at Night a few years back. Magnum & T.C. are about to enter a building, armed of course, and you can see Magnum has his finger on the trigger of his 1911.

I'm sure this wasn't in the script but I could see the look on Tom Selleck's face when he realized that he was breaking one of the 4 rules, he pulled his finger off that trigger like it was hot.

 

[Ranger514]

What tyusclan is saying is that the way Bridges was holding the gun he was "aiming" with a nonexistant eye.

Read post #62. As I read it, that is not what he was saying. My dad shot rifles and shotguns right handed, using his left eye. It wasn't awkward for him.

As a firearms instructor, I have found some students who shoot handguns right handed who were left eye dominant. The ones I ran into shot their long guns left handed. It's uncommon, but I've witnessed it. I'm sure others have as well.

 

[UncaGrunny]

65 posts in and no one has mentioned Rambo firing a LAW in the cockpit of a Helicopter with out blowing it up?

If you're gonna go there, there 's also the scene in "Falling Down" where Michael Douglas inadvertently fires a LAW down a construction trench, which then makes a right-angle turn at the bottom of the hole to go traveling precisely through the covered ditch before finally blowing up a crane 1/4 mile away.

And let's not even mention "True Lies"

 

[Smoke]

Read post #62. As I read it, that is not what he was saying. My dad shot rifles and shotguns right handed, using his left eye. It wasn't awkward for him.

As a firearms instructor, I have found some students who shoot handguns right handed who were left eye dominant. The ones I ran into shot their long guns left handed. It's uncommon, but I've witnessed it. I'm sure others have as well.

I went back and reread it and you are right

 

[Smoke]

Giving Credit Where Due

In the movie Red Dawn the brothers stop at a house on their way back to the mountains and the home owner (Ben Johnson BTW) takes their rifles, opens the bolts, checks the chambers and set them down with the actions open.

 

[DeadAye]

I like how those big propane cylinders always blow up when shot - Even by a bird gun at a fair distance in one of the Bourne flicks

 

[SgtLumpy]

I like how those big propane cylinders always blow up when shot - Even by a bird gun at a fair distance in one of the Bourne flicks

I saw some actor make fire extinguishers blow up by shooting them. Comforting to know that the contents of my kitchen fire extinguisher, if shot by a bullet, will blow all the doors and windows out of my house.

***

"It's a seven-six-two. That's a military sniper round. He must be an ex-military sniper. Check with the armories and see if they've reported any stolen ammo"


Sgt Lumpy