Actors with guns in movies/tv

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growr

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Why is it that almost all actors/actress's in movies and tv carry in appendix position and well forward of that. They almost all look ridiculous in their gun handling skills or lack thereof. For most of them they appear totally inept and almost afraid of the prop gun they "have to" wear because that's what the director wants sort of thing.
There are only a handful of them that portray their characters with any credibility in my opinion. Tom Selleck being one of the most credible in my book.
Where do these imbecile's get their training or lack thereof anyway?
Who else does a credible job in your opinion?
Randy
 
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It's to make the gun read on screen....they also hold their guns along their heads for the same reason....only true "gun" directors and sticklers for details like Michael Mann try to do it the right way...
 
As I recall, I read that Michael Mann had his actors go through Chuck Taylor's school to learn some gun-handling skills, back in the days of the original Miami Vice. Selleck looks credible because he's a shooter. Most actors aren't. My favorite movie/TV carry faux pas is the ITP holster with a steel belt clip, worn OWB appendix, flopping around like a set of big bull testes. Don't recall what the film was, but I most recently spotted this silliness on Alec Baldwin.
 
I bet the Baldwin movie was The Departed -

arts-graphics-2007_1176734a.jpg


Tom Cruise seems to do a good job of gun handling - the famous scenes from Collateral and his nice one handed job of chambering a round in his PPK in Valkyrie come to mind.

Brad Pitt in Se7en knew his way around a 1911.
 
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Actually, Tom Cruise did a credible job of right-on gun handling when he put away a whole gang of young thugs on the street in "Collateral." It was by the book. I understood he was well schooled by professionals before the scene was taken. Worth watching.

I think any actor directed by John Milius would do OK. John's a member of the NRA Board and he goes to great lengths to make his movies authentic with respect to guns and gun handling.
 
38-44HD45 said:
As I recall, I read that Michael Mann had his actors go through Chuck Taylor's school to learn some gun-handling skills, back in the days of the original Miami Vice. Selleck looks credible because he's a shooter. Most actors aren't. My favorite movie/TV carry faux pas is the ITP holster with a steel belt clip, worn OWB appendix, flopping around like a set of big bull testes. Don't recall what the film was, but I most recently spotted this silliness on Alec Baldwin.
Click to expand...
The movie "Heat", in the extra features shows Deniro and Kilmer practicing live ammo, probably at the place you mentioned.
 
Sam Elliot seems to know his stuff too,
Gerald McRaney in the TV movie Blind Vengeance, his gunhandling skills are quite evident.
 
growr said:
Why is it that almost all actors/actress's in movies and tv carry in appendix position and well forward of that. They almost all look ridiculous in their gun handling skills or lack thereof. For most of them they appear totally inept and almost afraid of the prop gun they "have to" wear because that's what the director wants sort of thing.
There are only a handful of them that portray their characters with any credibility in my opinion. Tom Selleck being one of the most credible in my book.
Where do these imbecile's get their training or lack thereof anyway?
Who else does a credible job in your opinion?
Randy
Click to expand...

Man, that's really got you wound up! Might want to lay off the adventure movies for a while...
 
I think some actors try to do it right. I read an article by Mark Baker, the guy that trained Daniel Day Lewis for Last of the Mohicans, and he was impressed by DDL's desire to learn to do things the right way, and what a stickler for accuracy he was.
He also worked with Mel Gibson in The Patriot, and had good things to say about the Melster, in terms of his motivation for training.

roosterk
 
Fights are staged "for the camera". But mostly I suspect it's ignorance
combined with egotism.
 
My favorite is when they "stab" the gun out as they shoot.Guess they dont know how stupid that looks..Tears of The Sun was a good example of how to really use your firearm.Other than that, the movie was kinda lame.
 
Yeah, but the old "B" westerns from the 1940s that you never see anymore, the cowboys would be shooting a pair of colts alternatly raiseing them to the sky and lighting them off comeing down while raiseing the other etc. Even when I was 10 years old I thought that a little dramatic.
 
I think I saw smiley burnett once catch a bullet with his teeth and spit her out! Another time the villian peeked around the corner of the bar while on his knees, his hair was messed up all over his head, and a shot parted his hair and it was all instantly greased down! I just remember my dad telling me a talltale when I was about five. He told me about holding off a band of injuns while uncle herb would reload for him and stick the barrels of dads sixguns in a bucket of water while pa would keep shooting with another pair! (Now you know where I get some of this stuff!)
 
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roosterk said:
I think some actors try to do it right. I read an article by Mark Baker, the guy that trained Daniel Day Lewis for Last of the Mohicans, and he was impressed by DDL's desire to learn to do things the right way, and what a stickler for accuracy he was.
He also worked with Mel Gibson in The Patriot, and had good things to say about the Melster, in terms of his motivation for training.

roosterk
Click to expand...
Good Point. I was going to say that.

Will Snow looked pretty good in, "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" on syndicated TV shows. He started off with a silly toy rifle, but by the time he had real rifles, a Colt M-1911, and a brace of ivory-stocked MK VI Webleys, he was doing better. His co-star, Rachel Blakley, never learned to fire a rifle properly. The recoil of her .303 sporter would have smacked her pretty bad, and I doubt that she'd have hit anything. Her killing a dinosaur with a top-break .32 or .38 was just TV silliness, and to bolster her image as an an independent, resourceful woman. But she and Will totally smoldered romantically...

I got a laugh from one episode, where Finn spun the cylinder of a COCKED Webley .455. She (played by actress Lara Cox) was more plausible with her little crossbow.

I liked the scene in "Last of the Mohicans" where a mounted officer reached back and shot a Huron off of his back with his pistol. If I had ever made a movie, I think this is the film that I'd have wanted to make.

T-Star
 
Anyone remember the early '80s movie "Thief"? James Caan, as I remember it, gets double crossed by other BGs and searches the head BGs home with a 1911 looking for revenge. Very credible job, strong "Cooper"...

Now that I think on it, it might have been a Michael Mann flick as well...
 
sub-moa said:
Anyone remember the early '80s movie "Thief"? James Caan, as I remember it, gets double crossed by other BGs and searches the head BGs home with a 1911 looking for revenge. Very credible job, strong "Cooper"...

Now that I think on it, it might have been a Michael Mann flick as well...
Click to expand...

"Frank" used a Hoag custom longslide 1911 built right here in Cali....it's all right here...

Thief - imfdb :. guns in movies :. movie guns :. the internet movie firearms database
 
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