Movies

“Firearms training?   No – I just watch a lot of action movies.”
– Golgo13, at a Texas Tactical 3-Gun Event

Before John Wick, we had to look hard for legit gunfighter skills in the movies.

Sure, there was the occasional professional gun play seen (example – Thief with James Cahn), but I would venture to say that until Heat came out in 1995, the standards for accurate gunplay in cinema were pretty low.     Of course there were some notable exceptions, The Way of the Gun being one of my favorites, also Collateral – another Michael Mann film.

Growing up in an era when Red Dawn taught us that Russians could invade at any moment, movies from the 80s unapologetically featured mad-cap gunplay with insanely high body counts.

I remember watching Cobra on cable TV at my uncles apartment at the tender young age of 11 – lamenting the fact that when the inevitable biker gang apocalypse broke out and the hordes of satanic bikers came streaming into town I would have nothing better than Grandpa’s old 1894 Winchester 30-30 . . .   how the heck could I get my hands on a Jatimatic sub-machine gun, much less the sweet rig Stallone used to hold it and the requisite magazines….

Whether technically accurate or not, there’s no denying that movies and film are incredibly influential in the gun culture and The Action Lifestyle.

Who didn’t want to live in a converted warehouse after seeing Rutger Hauer’s domicile in Wanted: Dead or Alive, or decided they needed the weapons room in The Boondock Saints?

Hell, after seeing Commando, I incessantly tried to find that “special button” behind the counter in any and all Army-Navy Surplus stores to see where they kept the goods stuff.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t stay the starting point for any would-be or newbie gunowner wasn’t based on their favorite action hero.