We all know Hollywood for the most part doesn't have a clue about firearms, and movies and TV shows are responsible for so much mis-information about guns, the effects of ammunition, and shooting in general we could write whole books on the subject.

Took the better half to the flickers today just to get out for a while and do something we don't do nearly as much anymore and saw "The Taking of Pelham 123".

Not a bad story, as far as such things go ( read the book years ago - a lot updated in the movie, no doubt ) but being one of those husbands who is insufferable to watch gun movies with, my wife had to hear me complain about this one. Bad editing, bad script checking, poor technical advisor . . . don't know which, but this was so egregious I couldn't NOT notice.

The main character (Denzel Washington) is tipped off by a cop that he is hiding a stainless Walther PPK .380 in a marked money bag that he can access it if "things go bad". There's even a close up where he shows him how to engage and disengage the safety. Later, when Denzel reaches into the bag and retrieves the gun it has miraculously transformed into a silver colored Kahr 9mm. Duh . . . you'd think someone might have noticed that one. Couple that with an A.D. from a S.W.A.T. sniper who didn't blouse his BDU's in a contrived situation . . . well, not exactly a good movie 'technically'.

One bright spot to come, though, saw the previews of Johnny Depp's "Dillinger" in "Public Enemies" ( looks like he might pull it off) and the subject, the era, and the weapons we all know that were involved are there in glorius evidence and since this is a Michael Mann film, I feel pretty sure the technical aspects concerning the weapons will be much more 'spot on' than what I saw today.

So, what do YOU remember about phony movie guns or how they were handled that still makes you holler at the TV late at night ?

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Qui plantavit curabit

I like it when they cock the hammer on the Glocks, or when they go click 3 or 4 times when empty.

The original Movie with Walter Mathau and Robert Shaw was a good one.

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Stan

Yeah, especially 1911's and Glocks ! And it always chaps me when a spy or police officer whose already been shot at and has chased a suspect who tried to kill him into a building or somewhere, stops to to ostensibly rack the slide to chamber a round in an obviously previously empty chamber .

Or a cop getting ready to kick down a door doing the same thing. If he carries his weapon in that condition where he has to do that, he wouldn't live very long anyway . . . . not reality . . . .

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Qui plantavit curabit

I like it when some actor fires hundreds of rounds from a machinegun without changing the magazine. I want one of those magical magazines that never get empty.

I always love it when they fly through the air after being shot.

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NRA Endowment Member

I always wondered where James Bond got the 50 round magazines for his Walther PPK

Saw a movie the other night, Sorry I forget what it was, But it had me laughing when the good guy has a double barrel shot gun, He pickes it up and you hear (the slide rack) when he checks for shells,,,,,,,
Figures they needed the typical 870 noise even if it's a double barrel shottie!
Peter

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Need 1/2 moon Chiefs special

Commando.

The Governator kills 70 bad guys with a shotgun, an Uzi, and a .45

I think he pitched a couple pineapples, too.

That sure was some bottomless tactical vest!

I like it when they rack the slide of their semi-autos everytime they pull the gun out. Can't remember what I was watching the other day, but I figure that by the time the guy actually pulled the trigger, he had one up the spout and one in the magazine!

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Have Canon, Will Travel

Not a movie , but I bought a paperback
Zane Grey western once. The cover had
a gunfighter with a smoking navy Colt
in each hand.......and empty brass in an
arc leaving each one.LOL

Chipmunk6

In Butch Cassidy, in the scene where Redford holds a gun on Kathrine Ross and makes her strip, he get's so turned on even his gun grows an inch. It starts out 4 3/4" then grows to 5 1/2". She's so hot I don't blame the gun one bit.

Why do 'enemy combatants' in the movies always shoot from the hip with submachine guns/assault rifles no matter what the range.

No wonder they never hit anybody..

I like the Chinese movies where they fly through the air WHILE shooting!

I've read that that's one of the few realistic things in the movies. Other than actual Afghans, Hajji tends to be a lousy shot. Using the sights is considered "unmanly".

They do that on "The Simpsons", but I figure it's intentional, like the piston engine sound for the jet airliner in "Airplane".

Not just the recent ones.....
Seems like they have always portrayed most every armed adversary that way from Germans to North Koreans to VC, NVA, every third world thug army around and even domestic criminals.

I just thought somebody in Lollywood would have figured out that the sights might give 'em an edge and at least a look of reality at times.

They seem to get the right idea with a non-auto rifle in hand, but spray and pray makes for better ticket sales I guess even though they never seem to hit anybody.......but sometimes the full auto burst hits the ground kicking up dirt in front of the line of troops.... and they all fall down hit in the chest. Those ricochets can be a very accurate way of taking out enemy soldiers.

Law and Order SVU and CSI New York do this all the time. Drives me nuts. Little stuff like that kills what little credibility the show has. Seems like the original CSI, the one in Vegas gets most of this stuff right. I gave up on CSI Miami a loooong time ago for it's complete lack of detail on this stuff.

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AL
Pax Per Potens

I saw Taking of Pehlam 123 the other night, yes, the PPK morphing into the Kahr was as bad as it gets.

Until two weeks ago I had never seen an episode of 24 even though I downloaded the first five seasons about two years ago. What just drives me insane is EVERYTIME someone pulls a pistol the slide is racked, no matter if it was racked in a scene two minutes ago. Never mind that 9mm/.40/.45 suppressors are about the same size as a .22 can and every gun when, drawn/pointed/etc has to make the "cocking" sound. Just ridiculous.

What about the ones in the movies about the War of Northern Aggression. A lot of them shoot '73 Colts, Trapdoor rifles, and some even use '92 and '94 Winchesters. Maybe the late unpleasantness wasn't as long ago as my history book said it was. Larry

If you look closely, there are Trapdoor Springfields in "Captain Blood" with Errol Flynn. That was long before the days of Italian repros, and being able to reload quickly between takes was for more important than realism.

my brother's college roommate is a Frenchie and he convinced us to watch this French action movie called District B13. The acrobatics in the movie are awesome, but some of the characters rack their shotties every scene without firing. We realized that this must be why the French have such bad luck in World Wars, they are constantly unloading their weapons for the sake of looking awesome.

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I mean, you feel me....

I used to hate those cheap budget WWII movies where the Luftwaffe was strafing our troops in painted over Cessnas, or obvious surplus American tanks had iron crosses painted on them...no respect for the viewer...and some well regarded movies were guilty of this, including Patton, that 'tank battle' was ludicrous.
I always thought it odd that James Bond used a PPK, when a Browning Hi Power would have been such a better choice...blame the author I guess.

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Ed

I think the movie Battle of the Bulge had painted over "Patton" tanks as German Tigers. At least the small arms were correct. They did a good job with the newer movie Valkierie though. I have a good friend who is really into uniforms, flags and such and said it looked as accurate as any movie he had seen right down to the shoulder boards and medals.

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AL
Pax Per Potens

How about all those phoney ray guns and flying saucers.....
Gee, after all the invasions you'd think there should be plenty of genuine surplus....

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Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

In "Raiders of the Lost Ark" set in the 1930s, the German expedition to Tanis wears Afrika
Korps uniforms and carries MP38s. And an armed German expedition in British controlled Egypt in 1938?

My vote for most irritating thing in a movie has already been stated. Whenever someone so much as raises a gun quickly from low ready to pointing at someone elses face, there is ALWAYS the clacking sound of a slide being racked or the slighter sound of a hammer being cocked. This can happen several times in the same scene with the same gun.

WG840

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Freedom above all else.

Didn't I see that in the North Hollywood shoot out? I'm pretty sure I remember one of the perps hip shooting his AK.

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NRA Endowment Member

well here is a good one, in the matrix, agents easily shooting desert eagles in .50AE one handed, people dual wielding handguns, shooting in opposite directions and killing everything, with the guns feeding from 1,000,000 rd mags that seem a lot smaller in person.12 gauges blowing a HOLE in the wall, shooting your way through a floor to fall through it with a Beretta 92fs, or better yet accuratly shooting through a wall and killing 5 guys, I hate it when they portray they know more than they do

i not only love the hammer cock on glocks and 1911's but i especially love when it clicks enough times that you know the cylinder has been aligned for the next shot.

but the matrix wasn't supposed to be realistic..... at all.

More frustrating to me was in the last Terminator movie. They unload their rifles into the machines, then pull out their little 9mm as if those will do any more damage.... Terminator Salvation is probably the worst movie I have ever seen in theatres.

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I mean, you feel me....

Probably they watched the same movies and now they're both dead.

My latest pet peeve is the sparks when every bullet hits cars oir any other hard ( and not so hard) surface.

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Sceva
OGCA SWCA NRA

Well, how else can you blow up a car with a 9mm by hitting the gas tank ? Geez ! You gotta have sparks !

I love people hiding behind 55 gallon oil drums and having .223's and .308's bouncing off with sparks and leaving no holes. Now those are some TOUGH cans !

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Qui plantavit curabit

the sparks on concrete is kinda funny though

well anyone who has watched deadly weapons knows this is a hollywood line of B/S huh? but it is ridiculous when they level a city block with a 9mm and a gas tank from the explosion

Saving Private Ryan. During the D-Day beach landing when looking up at the bunkers where the the German M/G's are being fired from, you can see that the muzzle flash is computer generated. From the distance it was filmed at it would have made no differance what type of gun was being fired as you can't identify the gun, just the ****** CG muzzle flash. Even a Model 19 fired, filmed and spliced into the film would have given a better muzzle flash than what was shown.

Class III

Not only do pump shotguns and auto pistols get overly hand cycled in movies and TV but so does the Winchester Lever Action Rifle! In western movies they are constantly running the actions on the legendary rifles without shooting them.

In Stagecoach john Wayne's first scene shows him spin cocking his short 92 Winchester. A few minutes later when he gives it to the sheriff he levers the round out of it and gives it to him. All he just did was put a new round in the chamber and sent one off into the dirt! Unless he only had one round in the gun in the first place. Looked cool tho.

I"m sick of that same scene of SBD Dauntlesses bombing Pearl Harbor that's in almost every documentary on Pearl Harbor.

Glocks being audibly "cocked." 1911s being held on someone with the hammer down - useless until cocked or racked. Saw a movie on TV the other day where the heroine had a stainless Smith N-frame 4-inch that suddenly morphed into a blued J-frame snubby. Opening scene in a Jamie Lee Curtis movie, "Blue Steel," I think. The gun being loaded with rounds that had primer indents. The WWI battle scene in "Benjamin Button" where the doughboy is charging over the hill carrying a WWII wooden training rifle. Civil War battle scenes where they are all using trapdoor Springfields. It helps if the director is gun-knowledgeable or at least they hire a competent technical advisor. John Milius as director seldom makes these stupid mistakes. He's on OUR team. Check our "The Wind and the Lion."

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Hi,

For a contrary view . . .

I LOVE IT when Hollywood portrays really, really poor gun pointing techniques. From the days of the cowboys like Roy Rodgers "throwing" the bullets at a bad guy (so the sound effects guy would know where to put in the "gun fire" sound . . . to today's movies with the thugs holding the autos sideways and folks racking their slides to eject perfectly good rounds . . .

I suspect a lot of good folks lives have been saved because of bad guy idiots learning how to "shoot" by watching movies!

T.

A neverending list of genuinely silly, audience insulting gun BS. As much credit as Dirty Harry is given for counting his rounds fired, he later manages to fire several rounds from a bolt action .458 without working the bolt once. Then in his next DH movie the bad guys are using "silenced" Pythons. In his next one a robber pumps the SXS shotgun he's using. I thought Milius had something to do with these movies? You'd never know with those kind of silly mistakes. Hollywood loves to show sparks, perhaps to highlight the shootout that's already occuring. How about the size hole in the door left by a single shotgun shell in "Kill Bill Vol 2?" Must have been 18" wide, yet fired from basically point blank range. MY 12-gauge won't do that, nor will anyone's. And the things people hide behind--gimme a break! A .22 LR would penetrate that, never mind a .223 rifle shell. Well, I don't see much of this changing any too soon, so we who know better will have to take it with a grain of salt--IN OUR WOUNDS.

I have a bunch of old Wolf steel cased 9mm hollow point ammo that, when fired, does that.

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The Last Standing Knight

Last night I watched Chuck Norris rack the slide on his cut down Browning A-5 semi-auto.

Still, "Lone Wolf McQuade" is one of my favorite movies.

Watched Cowboys vs. Aliens last weekend, and more than one "six-shooter" had 10 or more rounds.

Love the recoil-free guns on Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, etc. And all the cool Glocks with invisible external hammers that must be cocked before the big showdown.

How about the semiauto gun thrown to a buddy and he has to rack the slide to chamber a round to for the big gun battle. Like the baddass dude wasn't carrying it with a round in the pipe already. Hilarious.

Not to drift this old thread, but Hollywood is just as stupid with automobiles as they are guns. Example, watch the old Burt Reynolds movie "White Lightning". He outruns the cops in town in a four door '71 Galaxie with a Hurst shifted four speed, complete with T handle and square Hurst "Super Boot" shifter boot, then pulls up in front of his folks' place and slams that big Galaxie into Park.

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MARK