Is your action/war film enjoyment reduced?

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FinnComm

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Is your enjoyment of action/war films reduced by your knowledge of firearms?

So you sit down to watch some action adventure or war film... and find yourself noticing all sorts of errors.

It's always been there, right from those cowboys who shot 50 rounds without reloading a revolver. But the list gets longer:

- "silenced" full calibre pistols that merely whisper
- "elite soldiers" firing without an eye in line with the sights
- "soldiers" manually cycling the bolt on a semi-auto rifle after each shot
- "special agents" running with finger curled around trigger and the barrel pointing at their buddy's back
- "baddies" getting shot and being lifted off their feet and blown backwards

Should actors be given more training in the handling and use of firearms?
At least for me, that would increase my enjoyment of films.
 
Not at all.
My favorite is cocking the Glock. I can't count how many times I have heard someone an a TV show cock their Glock. I always get a chuckle.
Seconded only by shooting a pistol with the slide locked open. You would thing that somebody that makes thees shows would have actually shot a pistol at least once. Sheesh
 
I expect this dramatic nonsense from Hollywood. I just block it out.

I was just re-watching the series LOST on Netflix and I was laughing at how many times they seem to rack every firearm. Didn't matter if it was an SKS, Glock or whatever they were using that day.
 
Fun watching them have a long gun battle in a closed room and no one has any ear problems. In the real world after a few shots you would be in some serious pain. But hey this is TV and the movies.

PS: I keep a set of electronic muffs in my night stand right next to the flashlight and gun. Wife has a set in her nightstand also.
 
No more so than every car that bursts into flames or goes flying through the air.

My wife and I watch "CHiPs" a lot in the afternoon. We make a game out of the cars flying through the air. (We also play "punch buggy" while watching, but you gotta be old to get that I suspect.)

It's just TV/a movie. Big deal. Laugh about it and go on.
 
Yeah, i just laugh at it now. My wife gets tired of me "correcting" wrong things in military/action movies. Only thing that bugs me is when openly anti-gun stars are shooting everything in sight. Hypocrites.
 
Most movies hire firearms experts to try to get as much as possible "right". But there are some things that the average Joe paying for a ticket expects to see and hear.

There are a lot of things done for dramatic effect, not just the guns used. Just part of the show and it doesn't distract me at all.
 
I do it all the time. The movie the Matrix drove me nuts when the good guy is shooting a 32 ACP VZ 61 scorpion but the brass hitting the ground was 223, evidently a reused cut from a different part of the movie to add action.

Some of the tactical footage drives me nuts as well when the Elite unit is sweeping each other with fingers on the trigger, just bad tactical/safety skill in general.

rskent

Not at all.
My favorite is cocking the Glock. I can't count how many times I have heard someone an a TV show cock their Glock. I always get a chuckle.
Click to expand...

Or the opposite when someone is held hostage by the bad guy with a 1911 to their head and the hammer is forward and not one of the 20 cops notice and they do nothing and the bad guy gets away.
 
The funniest thing to me is when a pump shotgun gets "racked" 5 or 6 times without ever being fired. That and, the bad guy holds someone at gunpoint with a Glock, and when he wants to step up his threats, he racks the slide.

Apparently, movie guys really get off on racking. And yes, the wife says, "Why don't you just enjoy the movie for what it is, and quit critiquing everything?" Hahaha

Just can't help it.

Reminds me of watching Starsky and Hutch once, and the bad guys took their car into a paint and body shop to change the color, to get the cops off their trail. But, they drove in in a white '63 BelAir, and drove out in a '64 green BelAir. And they used to turn corners hard and lose a wheel cover, then in the next scene the wheel cover is back in place.

I guess I know my (vintage) cars, and my guns a bit too well to not notice these things.
 
Well made movies with a good story line are enjoyable to me, equipment faux pas not withstanding. I notice them at times but I do not scour the films looking for the errors.

Second rate movies are a different story. Usually the filming, story line, acting and such are so bad that i loose interest in the film. Equipment errors are just another nail in that coffin. Sometimes, even if the film is used for background noise while I a doing something else, the movie gets so bad, I have to change to something else.
 
The walking deads first episode, when Rick tells the other officers to take the safety off on their glocks. Or the fact that in this day and age a cop would use a colt python cool though it is.
 
I watch movies for the story. I read books for the story. I just grin at the mistakes I catch and ignore most of them as long as the story is enjoyable. I just finished a book by Andrew Gross. Excellent story line but the guy REALLY needs some advice/knowledge about firearms.
 
I take it for what it is, but always think its ridiculous when someone racks the action when a round should have already been chambered, or when they constantly rack the action without ever firing a round. Never see live rounds flying out the ejection port when that happens...
 
Is your enjoyment of action/war films reduced by your knowledge of firearms
Click to expand...

Not so much the misuse of guns. It's the actors using them that I know are strong advocates for gun control when off-screen that spoil it more for me. Nothing worse than watching a hardcore action star making and enjoying millions of $ from the very thing they say we shouldn't have the right to possess.
 
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If it's Gabrielle Anwar (Fiona Glenanne) in Burn Notice making the mistakes with her guns I would never notice. :evil:

Putting that aside, I've always wanted some of those magazine holders where you just slam your pistol down on your hips and the magazines magically find themselves inserted in the mag well. Kate Beckinsale, Mila Jovavich, Jessica Alba and Kate Nauta have all used this maneuver in various flicks.

Laser sights. I love the way the red laser dots hold perfectly still on someone's chest or hand or wherever they are targeting. No waiver, no wobble, just dead still.
 
I think it stupid to shoot revolvers with no bullets in them which they do it all the time, other than that I barely notice because I don't care.
 
Yeah, it is. Some on-screen firearm mistakes are minor and forgivable, especially in an otherwise good movie or show, but it gets annoying quickly.

For example, I just re-watched The Departed. Very good movie but sometimes frustrating to watch, considering the amount of gun-related action and lack of attention to realism. DiCaprio's cup and saucer grip (yes, they taught proper grip at the academy), crappy trigger discipline, and a constant audible "cocking" of a Walther PPK by flipping up the manual safety was the worst.

Not too different from a technologist watching a movie hacker infiltrate the NSA intranet in two minutes by typing a few command lines of gibberish and pressing a super-secret key combo.
 
Never. This thread made me realize that in watching hundreds of war,action or western films since a child in 1948, I don't believe I've even once analyzed or dissected the merits of the gun use or handling in any film.

It's the plot, the actors and the action that draws my focus.

Fine, original thread idea, FinnComm. Good work! :cool:
 
I don't know that it diminishes my enjoyment all that much, but I get eye rolls from wifey when I point out the incongruities too often.
 
The more you know about anything, you will see more mistakes in movies.

I am sure on cooking forums people complain about inaccurate depictions of meal preparation.
 
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