Movie Theater "The American"

[Victor Co Heather]

Wow. Just saw this on cable last night and can anyone tell me why they would spend 30 million on a movie and not have a proper firearms consultant???

I can usually overlook the '9 shot' revolver or the glock model 9 that is made out ceramics but this flick had so many half baked and incorrect gun references, I was reminded how little hollywood knows or cares about getting things close to reality.

Things left me scratching my head:

1. A Mini 14 was selected as the weapon of choice for a "5.56 submachine gun that could shoot like a rifle". And this takes place in Italy where I'm sure crappy Rugers are everywhere.

2. The female assassin requests a 'silencer' but George Clooney in his brilliance says he can't get one of those but he can get a 'suppressor' which will only reduce the sound signature and will knock off some of the range because the bullets go a little slower. Just like COD! YEah, it's that kind of movie.

3. In his hotel room with no tools other than a hammer, George takes some gears from a tranny, a steel pipe and 5 washers and somehow makes 8 fully lathed baffles and anodized black housing that threads together pefectly like an out of the box gemtech.

3. He drills the bullets and puts a drop of mercury fulminate in each. Yeah this is real dark ops.

I could go on but you get the point. Obivously Hollywood gets it wrong a bunch of the time-- I just thought that maybe they could consult with one or two people who actually have fired a real weapon to give the script a once over and pick out the turds.

Otherwise it was an ok flick. George is so dreamy.

 

[Lowlight]

Re: "The American"

Any guy who falls for a Hooker is my kind of guy... Here's hoping George gets an Oscar tonight, he is dreamy.

 

[5RWill]

Re: "The American"

The reason he gave her the mini-14 is because he really knew it was crap. Really he didn't rig it at all. It just had a malfunction and bam her face was gone.

Lol

The Italian Hooker was beautiful

The movie yeah it kinda sucked

 

[Dogtown]

Re: "The American"

Anton Corbijn is Belgian

 

[5RWill]

Re: "The American"

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0686376/

referring to Violante Placido... who is italian

 

[Victor Co Heather]

Re: "The American"

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dogtown</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Anton Corbijn is Belgian </div></div>

So this means he doesn't know poop about guns?

 

[Dogtown]

Re: "The American"

Yep, pretty much. It was also a small pseudo-art house production, so as you can imagine they didn't care so much about actual realism beyond their own perception. I see this same problem enough in Hollywood as it is. Corbijn is a famous musician photographer turned music video director turned movie director. He's a pacifist version of Tarsem.

 

[ewoaf]

Re: "The American"

I liked this movie actually. Seemed to me it was more about romance and nothing more. He just wanted to settle down with a hot chick to bang, but it's hard to do that when you're a super secret assassin. The end was the best.

 

[Cologgi]

Re: "The American"

It was an AC556, not a mini 14. Also, I found it interesting when he refered to the muzzle velocity in MPH.

 

[Victor Co Heather]

Re: "The American"

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BobcatT870</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It was an AC556, not a mini 14. Also, I found it interesting when he refered to the muzzle velocity in MPH. </div></div>

The MPH made me laugh out loud, as I recall George said the ruger's bullets "go 360 miles per hour"... that's about as fast as a bb gun. The action wouldn't even cycle at that speed, the real mini-14 (or fancy A-Team AC556) runs it's bullets much closer to 1800 mph.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dogtown</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yep, pretty much. It was also a small pseudo-art house production, so as you can imagine they didn't care so much about actual realism beyond their own perception. I see this same problem enough in Hollywood as it is. Corbijn is a famous musician photographer turned music video director turned movie director. He's a pacifist version of Tarsem. </div></div>

Yes, good point. I like Corbijn's work and I appreciate that he may not understand our dark arts but if I were doing a film about let's say, indy racing (which I know little about) I might employ an expert so I wasn't directing the actors in the pit crew to refuel the car through the hubcaps.

 

[Dogtown]

Re: "The American"

And you would be correct but as you know, in Hollywood there's a sense of perception as reality that leads filmmaker's to believe "it was cool how they did the guns in that movie, so we'll do the same." It's a cycle that feeds on itself, creating more and more inaccurate portrayals and when you point out the flaws the retort is often, "yeah well, this will be really cool though."

 

[Victor Co Heather]

Re: "The American"

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dogtown</div><div class="ubbcode-body">And you would be correct but as you know, in Hollywood there's a sense of perception as reality that leads filmmaker's to believe "it was cool how they did the guns in that movie, so we'll do the same." It's a cycle that feeds on itself, creating more and more inaccurate portrayals and when you point out the flaws the retort is often, "yeah well, this will be really cool though." </div></div>

sorta like when Jeremy Renner would push the on/off button to talk on his headset? (hurt locker) hahaha...

 

[ShakyDave]

Re: "The American"

One of my pet peeves is an author or a director who gets his firearms completely wrong. But they do and it ruins an otherwise great story for me. I'm sure most members of the public neither care nor notice but I do. Other than that I liked the movie. George was dreamy.

 

[Maggot]

Re: "The American"

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Shaky Dave</div><div class="ubbcode-body">One of my pet peeves is an author or a director who gets his firearms completely wrong. But they do and it ruins an otherwise great story for me. I'm sure most members of the public neither care nor notice but I do. Other than that I liked the movie. George was dreamy. </div></div>

Hollywood aint about right or accurate its about $$$