As the FX channel’s well-crafted series “Justified,” based on an Elmore Leonard short story, winds toward its finale, there has been a boo-boo. Senior citizen crime queen Katherine fought rival gangster’s bodyguard Mikey to mutual destruction. She emptied her revolver into him but didn’t stop him from beating her to death before he died in the arms of his boss.
Thing of it was – and perhaps only a gun geek would notice – she fired one shot more than she could have in real life.
Her revolver was clearly a J-frame Smith & Wesson .38 Special, with an obviously visible five-shot cylinder – a Model 60 Chief Special, it looked like to me – and she shot him six times without reloading.
Things like that make the aficionado roll his or her eyes: it’s like spotting a wristwatch on a character who’s supposed to be playing Robin Hood. Gets in the way of that “willing suspension of disbelief” we all need for enjoyment of fiction.
Sure ain’t the first time something like that has happened. A couple which come to mind:
In “Tombstone,” Val Kilmer’s character starts the central shootout armed with a double barrel shotgun (2 shots), a Colt Single Action Army revolver (would have probably been carried with 5 rounds, but could have held 6) and in the actual gunfight near OK Corral used as backup a Lightning model double action .38 Colt (again likely 5, but 6 tops.) That’d be 15 rounds at most without reloading, but in the movie he gets three shots out of the double barrel, and with a revolver in each hand (he used them sequentially in the actual gunfight) fired over 20 shots total before I lost count.
On AMC’s popular zombie series “Walking Dead,” the firearms foul-ups were so frequent I lost count there, too. I found myself yelling at the screen, “There’s no rear sight on that rifle!” “Get your finger off the trigger, there’s nothing to shoot at!” It was Significant Other’s turn to roll her eyes and say with her patented long-suffering sigh, “You don’t accept a rifle with no rear sight, but you DO accept animated corpses?”
In the pilot episode of “Walking Dead,” the Rick Grimes character tells his brother officers to take off the safeties…on their Glock pistols, which normally don’t HAVE safeties. (Glock has produced the G17-S with manual safety, and I have and like Joe Cominolli’s patented thumb safety retrofit on one of my Glock 17 pistols, but the ones on the show weren’t so equipped.) Another fiction favorite is “I flipped off my revolver’s safety.” MOST revolvers don’t have manual safeties, but I have a left-handed Frank Murabito safety on one of my Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolvers, and the right-handed version works off the cylinder release latch.)
Ah, Hollywood…
Gun people, what is YOUR favorite (or perhaps, most teeth-grinding non-favorite) firearms faux pas on TV and movie screens?
Two things:
Stargate (the movie) where the “special” forces team is constantly racking, cocking and otherwise loading their weapons in preparation for a firefight with an unknown enemy. They should have been falling all over the place, slipping around on the loose cartridges all over the floor. Yes, all the sound was added post production for tension building, but holy cow.
My brother had just finished basic at Ft Leonard Wood, MO and my parents took him out to see Rambo II (I guess it was the only thing playing). During the scene where John J pulls out the rocket launcher, the entire theater (full of young men who now knew better) yelled out “Back Blast Area Not Clear!”
As my uncle told me many years ago when I complained about lack or realism in Scooby Doo, “It’s not a documentary.”
The biggest gun blooper in shows is that you can hit somebody once with the butt of a gun and reliably knock them out, and knock them out with no permanent damage.
Like Ron ‘Person of Interest’ is a favourite of mine too. But it also has a moment which bothers me about firearms handling in movies/TV.
“We need to stop that car.”
“But it’s half-a-mile away.”
Reese walks around to the boot of their car and hauls out Barrett Light-50. I go “Cool!” Quickly followed by “Huh?” As Reese pulls back the bolt and then, like a lot of other people in TV, gently eases it forward . . .
-sigh-
Still enjoy the show though, as Dustydog says, “It’s not a documentary.” And especially since it’s eased into cyberpunk territory with The Machine as a Rogue A.I.
At least I hope it’s not a documentary . . .
The one that bugs me the most is the constant racking of the pump action shotguns, and the sound of hammers being cocked when the actor is clearly holding a striker fired handgun.
The worst movie I ever saw was on syfy (which is not an insult as I enjoy the occasional bad movie), I think it was named Zombie Apocalypse, in it one of the actresses fires a .50 cal machine-gun mounted on a grocery cart. When firing it had no recoil, the belt never moves, and no casings are ejected. The entire scene makes me laugh everytime
my biggest annoyance is the total disregard for the consequences of firing a gun right next to your head without any hearing protection. One of the worst offenders is from Die Hard 3 where McCain is in an elevator with a firefight that consumes at least 30 rounds going off from various guns. He steps out and 10 seconds later is engaged in a conversation with his hearing and speaking ability completely normal.
Steve sez: Actually, one of my least favorite moves is when the actor shoots the gun dry and then throws it at someone!
Jack adds: The best version of this one is when the gun is run dry and then the bad guy throws it at Superman in the old ’50s TV program. Like this is really going to solve the bad guy’s problem. 🙂
Everything I have read here is valid,and makes me cringe when I see it on screen.
I still think the all-time winner is when someone gets shot,they tend to fly through the air!
Honestly,this myth is what many,if not all anti-gun people believe.
Also,ANY gun,shooting at ANY cars rear will cause the gas tank to explode.
People believe this!
Since a few other folks have mentioned non-gun cinematic gaffes, I’d like to mention my pet peeve: People carrying suitcases, packages, or other objects which are supposed to be heavy, but which by the way they are handled, swing, and settle to the floor are obviously empty and light as a feather. This generally does not happen when the weight or burden of the object is a substantial point in the scene, such as Hercules holding up a falling stone column, but only when it’s an incidental point, “Here, Ginger, let me take those for you,” or just part of the scene dressing.
I’m fine with it in a play or stage show which, because of the venue, generally requires some degree of suspension of disbelief, but it irks me in movies which generally try to be realistic but overlook this point.
OK the 6 shot/5 shot snubby was bad and could almost be excused in the nature of the struggle (almost, at least one of the shots could have been edited out), but last night Boone (voted bad guy most in need of a showdown with Raylan) spent some time explaining why his SAA had an empty chamber after cocking it and dropping the hammer on the NEXT chamber. Then goes on to explain the it was now loaded and “full of promise” without cocking again.
His speed, being able to out draw a pistol in the hand was all Blazing Saddles “wanna see it again” fun stuff.
For this crowd it’s redundant of course, but the hammer is customarily down on an empty chamber but the act of cocking brings the loaded chamber into battery. This was an unacceptable error in the sense that the character was in part developed on the open carry of a SAA in a rig built for a fast draw.
FWIW I could not identify the make of the revolver, perhaps an actual expert here could.
Just as well this series is drawing to a close as the plot line is getting ready to jump the shark.
Too bad there will be no more Elmore Leonard novels to enjoy.
1. Leaping put from cover with 2 pistols (1 in each hand) firing while in air without sights and hitting all bad guys (that have been aiming at the hero the whole time) ala Nicolas Cage
2. 2 pistols (1 in each hand) firing with crossed arms (right hand shoots to left, left to right) and hitting all bad guys without aiming (Cage again)
3, Actually, 2 pistols shot without looking through sights or bracing with no apparent recoil and hitting all targets (Tomb Raider)
4, Team of hit men ambush hero and shoot place to pieces but somehow only shoot upper 2/3 of building, leaving lower 2-3 feet miraculously untouched so hero can crawl or duck and run allowing escape while saving innocent bystanders (Mel Gibson)
Fun topic!
1 more – bad guys shoot automatic weapon at hero but cannot move from side to side any faster than the exact speed hero can run across room to outrace line of bullets
The worst boo boo I’ve seen is in Primary Colors, where Kathy Bates intimidates someone into doing something he’s reluctant to do by pointing a revolver at him. Every time he hesitates, she cocks the hammer, with the Colt SAA 4-click sound effect, whenever the guy hesitates. She does this at least a half dozen times! And we never see or hear her lowering the hammer.
Jack: Even better, when the bad guy is blasting away, Superman just stands there chest out with his hands on his hips. When the gun runs dry, and the bad guy throws it at Superman in frustration, Superman ducks.
Stever said –
Everything I have read here is valid,and makes me cringe when I see it on screen.
I still think the all-time winner is when someone gets shot,they tend to fly through the air!
Honestly,this myth is what many,if not all anti-gun people believe.
Also,ANY gun,shooting at ANY cars rear will cause the gas tank to explode.
People believe this!
Even worse – those people vote!
I recently read, on the web, a three part photo collection of the Vietnam War. In one section, there is a photo of a tunnel-rat climbing out of the mouth of a tunnel with a revolver equipped with a suppressor. Circa ’65-’68, IIRC.
Stever,
About shooting the gas tank; I used to believe a bullet fired into a gas tank would explode the tank. Hey, gasoline is highly flammable, isn’t it? Wouldn’t that lead bullet hitting the metal tank create sparks? I used to have a VHS tape where gun myths were explained. In the video, a large car’s gas tank is sitting on the ground. It is half filled with gasoline. That means the upper half of the tank contains fumes. The demonstrator shoots through the tank with various calibers, including .50 BMG, and there is no explosion or even fire. Apparently, the ratio of air to gasoline fumes mix in the tank is not right to create combustion. But hey, flaming cars look very exciting on screen, don’t they?
Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies: Some of the “Secret Service” are armed with flintlocks(!), which fire even though the hammer is forward and the pan open!
And of course the legions of films where we hear some kind of clicking sound when Glock pistols are drawn and aimed. The Simpsons even made fun of this, with Native Americans with bows and arrows that made the same sound when presented.
The most recent I’ve observed was in the movie John Wick (which in general had some decent gun-fu)
When one of the Russian Mobster’s underlings draws a Beretta 92 and places it at John Leguizamo’s head, the hammer is down and the safety is on. In the next cut of the scene, the hammer is back and the weapon is on fire with no apparent action by the thug.
Possibly poor editing, but another example of a quick shot that is not accurate.
Two-fer: In the original Assault on Precinct 13 you had a guy firing a silenced revolver who didn’t notice he was out of ammo because of the silencer. Apparently the silencer also eliminated all recoil when the gun was loaded.
Despite being a great big Walking Dead fan, I second all the comments here about the ridiculousness that goes on with that show (most notably, Herschel’s ever-full shotgun at the end of season 2, not to mention the ongoing lack of muzzle control.)
But, I must also mention these perennial cinema standouts:
1. The bullet hits it’s target in the chest/belly/whatever, and said target then FLYS backwards. As if on a trampoline. Busting through scenery.
2. The perpetual holding-a-gun-on-the-bad-guy from two feet away. Or one. Or at point blank range.
I will admit that at least when they shot Sophia on TWD she didn’t fly backwards, despite being a small child. And a zombie.
@Old_Warhorse, hopefully you were not referring to the famous Clint Eastwood squint. Because that bad boy just has the best ‘tude of all. 🙂
Oh, man, such a long list… I try not to be a gun snob and also to realize that the final cut (the editor’s and the director’s fault, usually) is probably the cause of many boo-boos and continuity errors. So we shouldn’t get mad at the firearms consultants or supposedly gun-people actors. They have no idea what will show up on screen.
This said, and since I’m a 1911 whore, what makes me cringe the most is when those guns have hammers that go from cocked to decocked and back from one shot to the next. And also when a gun is fired and the hammer stays down. I think that one can come from non-firing guns and pyrotechnics added in post-production. The 1911 handled by Robert Mitchum in The Yakuza (1974), for example, was a Japanese replica-gun whose slide never moved during firing. As Mas said, it’s probably best not to point out those things to the uninitated.
Another big issue with me is terminal ballistics and when people fly in the air upon getting shot (anyone seen the otherwise entertaining Last Man Standing?!), I have a hard time watching the rest of the movie. This crap started with shotguns for effect and is now down to J-frames, I’m afraid, along with gallons of blood and guts repainting the set after every shot.
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