Movies and tv series with realistic gunfights.

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Drago-Kazov, Nov 1, 2012.

  1. Drago-Kazov

    Drago-Kazov Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2012
    I had enever been in a gunfight but as far ass i remember Generation Kill, The Wire and Hatfields and Mccoys HBO mini had the most realistic ones i had seen on scrren. A special shoutout for Tour of Duty season 1 too.

    I would like it if people who had seen actual combat as part of Law Enforcement or military would share their opinions. I don't dicriminate against gang-bangers and terrorists either.

    Are there any others? Am i right about the ones i listed?
     
  2. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2008
    Location:
    Just around the bend.
    The most realistic part of a gun fight I have seen was first season Hawaii 5-0. They actually had to stop and reload in the middle of the fight. Hatfields and McCoys wasn't HBO.
     
  3. Drago-Kazov

    Drago-Kazov Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2012
    History Channel right. I forgot. Were all gunfights like that on Hawai 0 5?
     
  4. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2008
    Location:
    Just around the bend.
    5-0 hasn't had many drawn out gunfights like that since the pilot. I don't recall any other reloading scenes. They're way too busy with gratuitous smart phone scenes these days.
     
  5. Mister Fandango

    Mister Fandango Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2012
    I found the scenes in Reservoir Dogs rather believable, especially Mr. Pink when he stole the car.
     
  6. BruntFCA

    BruntFCA Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2011
    Location:
    A Mile High
    Open Range was really good.
     
  7. Captaindemotion

    Captaindemotion Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 26, 2001
    Location:
    Ireland
    I'm not expert but I thought the one in Heat (apparently co-ordinated by former SAS members) was pretty convincing.

    Of course, gunfights like those in Reservoir Dogs or The Wire, where people blaze away amateurishly and hit only at random or close range, are probably more like what happens in real life.
     
  8. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    I've always wondered if Gun Kata, from Equilibrium, could ever be made to work in real life. That looks like a very cool way to pull off a gunfight!
     
  9. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2008
    Location:
    Just around the bend.
    ^Mythbusters did a "dodging bullets" episode. The short answer? no.
     
  10. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    ^ But gun kata isn't about dodging bullets that have already been fired. It's about never being where the bullets are going to be. It's about recognizing where your opponents will be - and therefore where they will shoot - and not being there in the first place. It's about getting out of the way BEFORE they shoot. That's the difference.
     
  11. Mister Fandango

    Mister Fandango Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2012
    Yeah, unless your brain happens to be an ultra powerful quantum computer that can account for every potential possibility and thus accurately predict the future, then no, gun kata from Equillibrium has zero chance of being even remotely possible.

    Slightly improve your chances of not getting shot? Maybe, if you have some amazing gift for reading situations and people. But no way in Hell anything like in the movie where you just stand in the middle of six highly skilled and trained gunmen and walk out unscathed. Repeatedly.
     
  12. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2008
    Location:
    Just around the bend.
    Especially against full auto machine guns.
     
  13. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2005
    The Wire was fairly realistic and unromantic in its depictions of gunfights. The episode "Stray Rounds" comes to mind.

    I think the gunfight in Tombstone comes the closest to the historical record, at least in terms of duration. Most of the versions of Wyatt Earp that I've seen have stretched out the battle into oblivion, when in fact it unfolded in less than a minute.
     
  14. Drago-Kazov

    Drago-Kazov Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2012
    Stary Round s is the one in which a kid gets shot trough a window accidentally?
     
  15. Caliburn24

    Caliburn24 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2005
    Location:
    Gig Harbor, Washington
    As an Iraq war combat veteran, I will say that Generation Kill is probably the onscreen depiction that comes closest to what I experienced.

    The thing that almost no movies or shows get right, is that people get freaking weird when bullets start flying, even professional soldiers. Because despite all that training no one really knows how they will react when bullets start whizzing by them for the first time.

    The grizzled Sergeant with 20 years in the service may freeze up, the hard-charging LT might start spraying wildly. And that high school drop-out Private who spends 300$ a weekend on booze and has never made over 30/40 on rifle qualification, suddenly becomes cool as a cucumber and starts dropping the enemy with snapshots at 200 meters.

    Real gunfights are wildly, wildly unpredictable, chaotic, and sloppy. And Hollywood rarely gets that right.
     
  16. BruntFCA

    BruntFCA Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2011
    Location:
    A Mile High
    Appaloosa also had a very realistic gunfight in it.
     
  17. Drago-Kazov

    Drago-Kazov Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2012
    Caliburn24
    Does that happen to veteran sergeants too who had seen more combat. No offense to anyone but seargeants today had probably seen much less combat then the ww2, Korea and Vietnam generations. Did the same thing happen to seargents who were veterans of bloody and long conflicts like WW2 and Vietnam?

    I know the US had been in Iraq and Afghanistan for long but as far as i know battles like the ones fought in ww2 are rare. Its more hit and run.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2012
  18. The Green Mushroom

    The Green Mushroom Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2001
    Location:
    United States
    So is it too late to say Raiders of the Lost Ark? Shoot the guy with the sword, move on to the next problem.
     
  19. Caliburn24

    Caliburn24 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2005
    Location:
    Gig Harbor, Washington
    That question is really impossible for me(or anyone) to answer conclusively. But I can toss out a couple nuggets of information that might shed some light on it.

    1) Different specific figures get tossed around all the time. But the conventional wisdom is that only around 10-20% of US WW2 soldiers would fire at another human being when it came down to infantry warfare. In Vietnam that number supposedly climbed to 40-50%, and in the modern US Army army it is supposedly around 75%. The changes are largely due to changes in training(man-shaped pop-up targets for rifle qualification etc), and the fact that we have moved to an all volunteer Army. The guys volunteering for Combat Arms, in theory, should have no mental or emotional issues with killing other people.

    2) Back during WW2, US Army sergeants were promoted by their units. Nowadays there is a centralized promotion board. What this means is that sergeants today play the game, get their promotion points, their correspondence courses, sundry other things, and get promoted according to a fairly set time-table. Sergeants in the old days were promoted because of merit(or favoritism, take your pick), meaning that those soldiers who demonstrated courage and leadership under fire could immediately get promoted by their respective Battalion or Regimental officers. Which of course would more rapidly allow the US to field a battlehardened corps of NCOs.

    3) But yes. US(heck all armies I'm sure) soldiers, from the lowest private, to grizzled sergeants, to officers of all ranks have frozen up in all our wars. It isn't recorded or really mentioned in the academic historical books, or journalism of the periods, but read the personal accounts and biographies of combat soldiers and you'll see exactly what I am talking about.

    In Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back for example, there are several cases of soldiers of various ranks freezing up in the midst of combat.
     
  20. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2004
    Location:
    Hiding with the Water Tribe
    The Way of the Gun, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the writer of The Usual Suspects. McQuarrie's brother, a former SEAL, choreographed all the gunfights in the film, hence the high level of realism in what was otherwise a comedy/action/drama.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mzDxonmUnA
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRAR9kvjDzE&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWC3tmuG5h0&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfokJrYhn5E&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o0Co4kbRZo&feature=related