Saturday, May 10, 2008

Movie Guns VII

I chose the film Ronin for this weeks Movie Guns. This movie has a ton of weapons and gunfights, and some spectacular car chases. Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno star in this movie about a group of mercenaries who are to steal a briefcase by force from heavily armed guys. Gun handling skills are top notch, with very few mistakes.

The first gun that I have pictured is a Baby Eagle. I never saw this weapon fired in the film.
Baby Eagle

When the mercs are talking about weapons acquisition, Spence (played by Sean Bean) asks Sam (Robert DeNiro) what his favorite weapon is:

Sam - I actually favor the ol' 1911.

Spence - .45.....old gun.

Sam - Served my country well for a long time.

Not long after this, there is a great gunfight in an underpass where we see Sam knock down some bad guys with his 1911:
DeNiro's 1911

DeNiro's 1911 firing

Firefight


I think I would change my ammo if I had fireballs like that coming out of the muzzle. Vincent is blasing away with a stainless Beretta 92F which he uses throughout the rest of the movie:
Beretta 92F

Here it is seen in a later firefight:
Beretta 92F SS

He has a good hold on that Beretta and he keeps both eyes open with every shot. Of note is that Jean Reno doesn't flinch at all, and he fires the gun like he has owned it his whole life. I don't know if he shoots often in real life, but he plays a believable character.

In the same underpass firefight, Spence is indiscriminently firing with an H&K MP5 PDW with a bottomless magazine:
H&K MP5 PDW


The big gunfight is somewhere in the middle of the movie, and Sam starts it out by blowing up a car with a H&K 69 40mm grenade launcher:
40mm GL

He then lights up another car with his Sig SG551:
Sig SG 551

One bad guy - if he can be called that - is returning fire with a Scorpion SA Vz 61:
Scorpion SA Vz 61

He quickly becomes merc fodder like all the others, except for these guys in the car; one of which is shooting an AK pistol:
BG w/Krink

This ambush triggers a great car chase, and Sam takes out a car with a M72 LAW from the sunroof of a speeding Mercedes:
LAW

When the chase comes to a crashing halt, he pulls out a Para M249 SAW and puts down a base of fire:
SAW

That's what I'm talkin about! In this scene he shoots up a car in an alleyway:
SAW blast

Then he takes cover behind the corner of a building and drops a few BGs with some defilade fire. You can see where the wall turns black from the muzzle blast:
Base of fire from defilade

Notice he has his knee against the wall for support. He would have more control over the weapon if he would extend the stock, plant the stock in his shoulder, and then shoot from a kneeling position. This is one of the better movie gunfights.

Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard) who plays one of the mercs chose to carry a Glock 34 for reasons unknown:
Glock 34

It worked fine for Denzel Washington in the movie Man on Fire, I just don't see why anyone would want to carry one.

Larry (Skipp Sudduth) has a short barreled Mossberg 500 that is never shown being fired:
Short Barrel Moss500

A tactical/SWAT team of ninjas rolls up, and here they are with mismatched weapons:
Ninja

After that big gun battle, the pace of the movie slows a bit to make room for a little acting. The WTF uber tactical award goes to Gregor, who wields this ridiculous looking Glock with some no-name red dot optic on top to shoot at a little girl:
Uber Tactical non-H&K

It looks like he put all of that stuff on the Glock 34 he was carrying earlier. Somehow I always knew race guns were dangerous (sarcasm)!

About two thirds of the way into the movie, there is a scene where a sniper with an AR-15 of unknown make guns down an ice skater:
AR15

Several Sig P239's are shown or fired in this movie like this one in two tone:
Sig P239

And this one that Sam fires at Gregor in front of hundreds of onlookers:
Sig P239 firing

Notice that DeNiro has a good firing grip, and is squinting but not flinching. Speaking of which, it seems to me that the terrible flinches in movies may be generated by the extreme muzzle blast and fireball projected by shooting blanks. Just a thought.

The last gun I will show is a Walther P5 that this BG indirectly shoots Sam with:
Walther P5

The hilarious part is that the round hits a concrete wall at around an 85 degree angle, from where the pistol is aimed in the picture, and then ricochets into Sam where it penetrates his kevlar vest. Later, when the bullet is removed from his abdomen, Sam says that the BG "sprayed his bullets with teflon." It's amazing that this Hollywood myth is still in circulation.

The myth is that teflon covered bullets can penetrate "bullet proof" vests because the teflon lubricates the shot hole as the bullet passes through. This is so ridiculous. To quote myself:
Teflon was initially used on hard bullets like bronze that wear out the rifle bore quickly. These hard bullets were coated with Teflon to prevent bore wear, and later they became popular because they prevented fouling in rifle bores that fired traditional copper bullets. Again, Teflon coating on bullets has nothing to do with penetration and is pretty much obsolete.

That's it for today. Tonight I will pick up a copy of The Outsiders to try and get some frames of the balisong that was used in the movie. I will try to get those into a post tomorrow.

Update: Anonymous points out in comments that Gregor's Glock is actually a 17L, and he has a good picture to show the difference. Good catch!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love your site!

Is Gregor carrying a G34, or a G17L?

Anonymous said...

I'm curious - what's your beef with the Glock 34?

Unknown said...

No beef; it's just that it's a big pistol to be concealing. Then again, so is the Glock 17. In a fight I would rather have more barrel than less, but to be carrying around I would have to go with a shorter pistol. The Glock 17 is about as large a gun as I carry, but I used to carry a Glock 20. It's generally true that the older you get the smaller your carry gun gets. The exception is the 1911 because it's so thin.

My comment about the Glock 34 was in regards to everyone else in the film carrying little Sigs, or in DeNiro's case the 1911, but Gregor has this large pistol, and why he decided to put all of that stuff on it later on in the movie is just weird.

Anonymous said...

Great blog!

A few corrections though... Gregor's Glock 34 is actually a Glock 17L. It has a slightly longer barrel and slide than the 34 :)

Also, Sam's Sig 239 shown towards the bottom where he's firing it in front of the crowd is actually a Sig 228.

Cheers!

Unknown said...

Looking back at these pics, you've got me on the Sig, but I'm looking at pics of the Glocks right now, and if you can tell the difference of less than half an inch from the picture than you're a better man than I.

Anonymous said...

Hi CTone,

I guess I'm a better man than you :) Hehe... just kidding around, of course. You've done a great job identifying the firearms... kudos to you!

The reason I can tell that Gregor's Glock is a 17L is that if you look at the first photo of Gregor above, the muzzle end of the slide is flat. If he was holding a Glock 34, the muzzle end of the slide would be beveled.

Here's a link to a photo where you can see the difference between the 34 and 17L muzzles. http://lundestudio.com/thumbnail/glock-longslides.jpg

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Sorry... Here's a larger version of that 34/17L comparison picture.

http://lundestudio.com/photos/glock-longslides.jpg

Cheers!

Unknown said...

Indeed, you are right, and great picture!

Anonymous said...

Oh, That's not my photo. That was taken by Ken Lunde. http://lundestudio.com/

He's a great firearms photographer. I can stare at his photos for hours!

Anyway, have a great fall!

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Stellan Skarsgard pistol is actually a glock 17L.

Unknown said...

Looks like the scope on the suppressed Glock is a Bushnell Holosight.

Anonymous said...

Not to split hairs but DeNiro's 1911 is an M1991A1. They were selling it on one of those prop sites a while back. And I think the M72 LAW is a fictional mock up because it looks to thick and the trigger mechanism is completely different. Nice post though, I really should watch this movie.

plasma tv said...
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Anonymous said...

Firearms in most movie scenes purposely use powder that produces much more flash than you would see in standard OTC ammunition. The reason is to more easily capture it on film, especially on fully automatic rifles or weapons with with flash hiders left on to look authentic.

Anonymous said...

in the pic of Gregor, where you show him with what you call a G34, it is actually a G17L the G34 only has about a 3/4" longer slide, the 17L has about 1 1/4" longer slide. Still both 9mm though!

Anonymous said...

Glock 34 has a rail on the front since it was only made in gen 3 for glocks, glock 17L was pre-gen 3 and would therefore not have a accessorie rail. You can clearly see no rail on the one used thus assuming it to be a 17L.