Hollywood handgun portrayal BS

R

reaganmarine84

New member
I've watched 2 movies lately where two guys were fighting hand to hand and the one guy SUPPOSEDLY,just pulls the slide off of the other guy's pistol,while fighting,in order to render it useless. Unless there is something out there I don't know about pistol disassembly,this is complete Hollywood baloney. What say you guys???:confused:
 
have you stripped a Beretta/Taurus 92? It can be done with those....the lever on the left side swings 90 degs. and the slide is off less than a second.....no tools...no pins...

I know becuase I own one.
 
Last edited:
What two movies show this?
Click to expand...

It’s done in one of the Lethal Weapons movies and if I remember correctly that character carried a Beretta 92. Still BS though.

I actually met someone who claimed to be able to do this. Didn’t seem like a conversation worth pursuing so I let it go.
 
No offence but when I see threads like this I wonder if car people get together and complain about chase scenes, or cops complain about cop scenes, or excons complain about jail scenes, or doctors complain about er scenes, or.....well you get the picture. I am under the impression it is all bs and for entertainment only. We notice guns because we are into guns
 
You know I was watching a Bond movie the other night and what utter crap. I mean a real spy would be a mid level manager and simply go through the trash of the agency he was working for. Laser watch my hairy butt. :D

Seriously though. Movies are suppossed to be escapism fun. If you want to enjoy real world gun play watch the news. It happens close, close, close, fast, fast, fast and the wrong people get shot lots of times.

As an aside, technically speaking, one, not me of course, but one could technically rip the slide off a Beretta like that. 99% would get shot first but it COULD happen. More likely to push it out of battery.

Do I even need to discuss Top Gun and the F5.....ahhh I mean MIGS in that movie???

I am a car guy, gun guy, IT guy, have some medical experience, worked for a major metro PD and am generally a jack of all trades. I love me some unrealistic movies. If I wanted realism........I would go back to my life. Movies are meant to be fun for me. Sometimes a certain level of realism can add to it but overall I want fun.

As far as fighting and guns and knives go realism is bloody, fast, close, ugly and unsettling. Realistic violence turns my stomach to be honest. Give me True Lies any day vs. Schindlers List(not a bad movie just unsettling as it should be).
 
In response to jhenry: I was watching Mission Impossible 4:Ghost protocol and the other was Colombiana. What's worse,is that in Colombiana,after she stripped the slide off of the frame she jams the slide into the 'bad guys' neck thereby killing him. Yeah right. Response to Budda: No,I have not disassembled a Beretta/Taurus 92. When I was in the corps, we were still using the 1911. Does the takedown lever have to be removed or just swung 90 degrees? I guess I could check it out on YouTube. Response to TennJed:yes. Car guys do get together and 'critique' how hollywood displays car related issues. I notice these things because I was a hard-core,NHRA drag racer until 9/11,and then I kinda got back into the firearm scene.
 
No offence but when I see threads like this I wonder if car people get together and complain about chase scenes, or cops complain about cop scenes, or excons complain about jail scenes, or doctors complain about er scenes, or.....well you get the picture. I am under the impression it is all bs and for entertainment only. We notice guns because we are into guns
Click to expand...

+1

This reminds me of two stories:
  1. I watched Pulp Fiction with a friend and his girlfriend, who is a nurse. When it got to the scene with the adrenaline syringe, she was miffed. Apparently proper technique would be to "slip it through the intercostal space, harrumph!" (Punching through the sternum makes for better drama, though.)
  2. Another friend works at NASA. When Apollo 13 came out, he circulated a list of top 10 NASA employee complaints about the movie. It included stuff like using a slide rule to do algebra, Ed Harris as Gene Kranz wasn't intense enough, and so on. The best one? The movie was ruined because the footage used as the live launch showed a rocket with the test launch paint pattern.
Does anyone besides me remember when David Letterman had a welder on the show to do a review of Flashdance?

Regards,
Tom
 
As an aside this reminds me of another thread years ago that cracked me up on another forum. Somebody was complaining about how in Finding Nemo the sharks could swim backwards and that was just wrong.

A few posts down somebody asks. "So you are ok with the talking fish though?":D
 
Last edited:
It can be done with Beretta 92. My brother's first duty weapon was a 92fs and he showed me it was possible (was kinda shocked that he took the slide off before i could pull the trigger.) I know its hard to believe and I would have been the first person to call B.S. until i witnessed it.

FYI: There was no magazine or ammunition in the gun, so im not sure what would have happened if there were.
 
Specific to the M9/Beretta 92, I've done this in training. I would not want to have to count on doing it with somebody who was trying to shoot me, but I have managed it in training.

The guys calling BS on it probably haven't tried it. It's entirely possible, although it may not be likely.

FWIW, it's much simpler to just shove the slide out of battery. That will disable pretty much any auto. Keeping it out of battery is a bit more difficult.

Edit: In case you haven't guessed, if I were going to attempt this, I would first push the slide out of battery, and clamp my hand around it while I pushed in the disassembly button on the right of the gun, that lets the disassembly lever on the left be rotated. I'd keep the muzzle pointed away from me then, when I released the slide and let the gun disassemble, since I'm not sure if it might fire as the slide and hammer came forward before the slide detached. (In training, we did not use loaded weapons.)
 
Last edited:
I remember reading an article in a gun mag where the author was watching a Terminator movie and pointed out to his wife an inaccuracy regarding a gun firing more bullets than it should. His wife responded by asking him that he didn't have an issue with time traveling killer cyborgs, but why was he nit picking about a firearms detail?
Hollyweird does not live in a place called "reality". I cringe every time someone flips the cylinder shut on a revolver, I want to yell whenever some knucklehead says that Glocks should be banned because they are all plastic and can be smuggled through metal detectors (Looking your way Die Hard) or when someone on screen calls an M-16 a "gun". When my brother was in boot camp, calling your rifle a gun got you push ups.....and the list goes on. Watch "The Mummy Returns" ahttp://thefiringline.com/forums/images/smilies/eek.gifnd you will see the lead actress firing shots, even with the slide locked back.
My personal theory is that Hollyweird is spreading misinformation for their own agenda. Ever been to the range and seen someone try that crap they saw in a movie? Flipping the cylinder shut on a revolver, or shooting gansta' style? At least we know better.
 
In general, I agree with you guys.

However, the example specifically cited in the OP is actually viable. May not be easy, but can actually work. If you call BS on that, you haven't handled the Beretta.
 
Mike, and other sarcastic ones, have you ever tried it?

My bet is you have not. Find a friend who has a Beretta, and (after making sure it is unloaded) try it for yourself.

Edit: Try it in an area that is carpeted, padded (wrestling mat, etc) or has good dense grass - friend probably won't want his slide scratched when it hits the ground.

Trying it might kill some of the sarcasm. It may take a few attempts, but you will find it can actually be done.

Of course it takes less effort to just snipe and ridicule...
 
Last edited:
I don't know about the 92, but my Px4 has only a latch-thingy which if someone were to grab the barrell could be moved down and the slide would come off. You'd have a hard time stabbing anybody with it though unless they were made of jello.
 
My father once showed me how to keep someone from shooting you by pushing the slide back on an automatic or by grabbing the cylinder of a revolver so it wouldn't turn. Both of those things are true but I always assumed he was faster and had stronger hands than I did.

You know, I believe most people killed with handguns are shot by people who rarely if ever went to a pistol range, the police excepted, and of course everyone here believe the police are undertrained just the same. It is entirely possible there is no connection between what happens when someone shoots someone else and what happens on a pistol range.

You don't imagine that all of the shooting that John Wayne did in the movies with a single action was fake, do you?

Things are done a little differently in movies these days but Elmer Keith once made a comment about the impossible things shown in movies. He said something about riflemen not shown making the hits shown on the screen. I didn't believe the part about riflemen using real bullets in the film until I saw some photos of just such a scene being filmed. There were precautions being taken and the entire scene was a close up, but sure enough, there was a man just off camera doing some shooting.

By the way, I just did some extensive searching on-line and it is entirely legal and correct, except for servicemen, to call an M16 a "gun." It is also legal, though not recommended, to flip the cylinder closed on a revolver.

Now, regarding the Jello thing, take your hand, either hand will do, and place it on your belly, just above your belt. Push it in and out and from side to side. Do this with your muscles relaxed. Also, it should probably be done in private. What you feel is probably Jello. I realize some of you have steel there but for most of us, it's Jello. I understand it is remarkably easy to insert a sharp pointed object into the human body, which is referred to as stabbing.
 
Absolutely viable. Whether or not you would get it right all the time is another question. I was issued one in '90 and they did teach that it could be done. However, I seem to remember NOT having to push AND rotate the lever as you have to with the newer ones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top