Hollywood: When was the last time you saw a gun portrayed in a positively in movies?

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Doug.38PR

Moderator
Just a thought, but when was the last time any of you remember seeing a gun portrayed in a positive light in tv and movies? LEOs and Military (qualified as PCists would have us believe) aside, there are plenty of cop and war movies still around. You never see a hero with a handgun anymore in any movie? Last one off the top of my head is the Mummy with Brendan Fraisher (Love how he unrolls a blanket of guns) "Interesting, are we going into battle!" says the girl. :cool: But other than that, you never see it anymore. Magnum P.I. Carried a 1911 as a Private Eye. Countless other private eye movies in the 40s-80s all carried guns. Even non PIs would be seen carrying guns just because it was a good idea. I remember several horror movies where an average joe would have a handgun in his bag or on his person. Richard Carlson, just a writer living in arizona, carried a Detective Special in his pocket in It Came From Outer Space. Indiana Jones always carried a S&W revolver or Webley or 1911 as an archeologist (eccentric archeologist..but cool:)
But now only bad guys carry guns. Think about the recent movie National Treasure. Nicholas Cage and his friends were all running around in terror from these bad men with guns and bad background rock music to go with them. Sandra Bullock in The Net is running from a bad guy with a gun. Tom Cruise is running in all sorts of movies from bad guys with guns. Speaking of Tom Cruise did anyone notice the latest version of War of the Worlds? Tom, average joe in this movie, packs a Detective Special. Does it protect him? NOOOOO an angry mob attacks his car, he tries to use to back the mob off, but somebody else in the crowd has a gun and makes him drop it. Somebody else picks up Toms gun and shoots the other guy proving to the audience (supposedly) that "guns don't help you, they only lead to more violence."
Any other thoughts?
 
I have long thought that hollywood portrays guns in a negative light to further their antigun agenda. Its easy to scare the uninformed public on how dangerous guns are. When they have pistols in movies fireing dozens of rounds without having reload. Having the bullets knock a person half a dozen feet back when shot. Or having bullets blow huge chunks out of a person its going to look bad on firearms.Most of the public sees something on TV they automatically believe it.
 
i would tell ya what i think about hollywood but i'd prolly have my account cancelled in here too...............
 
Let's not forget about zombie movies:) In george Romero's series the most effective way to kill a zombie is to shoot it in the head, and almost all characters, both good and bad, civilian and military, are armed to the teeth.

In fact, the recent remake of Dawn of the dead had a gun shop owner named Andy trapped in his shop as an important character. In Day of the Dead a benevolent zombie named Bub learns how to use a gun and shoots the bad guy.

Also, these movies tend to portray guns very realistically.

Gun friendly, one more reason I love zombie movies :D
 
Jesse James used a GE mini gun in one of the early episodes of Moster Garage to blow the hell out of a build that didn't get done in time. I thought that was a very positive use of an awesome weapon. Also on one episode of ??? a custom bike builder show on Discovery, they showed Joe Martin from Texas out shooting his guns "to relieve stress". Again, great use of guns.

But you are right, the Magnum P.I.'s are long gone. Although Tom still does use a gun well in his TV westerns.
 
I'm pretty sure that the movie Serenity portrayed guns as quite useful.

Of course, there's a scene in a bar where the patrons had to check their guns into a revolving locker... demonstrating that it just wasn't safe to have guns in there.

And didn't River end up taking a gun from someone who apparently must have sneaked it in? (Or maybe I didn't watch closely enough to see where that gun she pointed at Mal had come from.)


-azurefly
 
Funny thing I watched the modern Romeo and Juliet remake the other day (it's about 10 yrs old now though) and started thinking of this. In that movie they replaced swords with guns since it was 'modernized' and just about everyone packed heat. You could look at things either way I suppose, but I went away from it thinking that an 'armed society is a polite society'. There were rules about dueling and people couldn't just go around shooting people or they'd get shot themselves real quick.
 
Myth Busters isn't too bad, all things considered.

"Interesting, are we going into battle!" says the girl.
Click to expand...
Rachel Weisz spoke?!?! :D


The Lost World isn't too bad.
 
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I have long thought that hollywood portrays guns in a negative light to further their antigun agenda.
Click to expand...

Absolutely they do. It's a concerted, deliberate effort on the part of certain producers & directors to brainwash the American public. The most absurd blatent anti-gun theme I've ever seen was in a movie called Jakob the Liar, when he access to a revolver, with which he could have started a revolution within the Warsaw ghetto, but ultimately rejected use of the gun, and was executed. But in the end, all was well because the Russians rescued the rest of the Jews while they were on a train headed to concentration/death camps - see, you don't need guns. Talk about re-writing history. :eek:

Rachel Weisz, now there's a tasty nugget. :)
 
Miami Vice! Suprising? Perhaps, but then you look at the movies that Michael Mann (executive producer of Vice) has directed, Collateral and Heat.

Hmmmm those are on everyones list as some of the most gun realistic movies around. For one of the episodes involving an Argentinian assassin (very cool and you'd think they got an actual assassin for the character) they hired an ISPC guy to play him. He does a very very fast draw with a 1911 and shoots two guys before you can blink.

In the pilot episode, Crockett uses a SIG P220 in .45 ACP, not a Bren Ten. Also in that same episode (really more like a movie its so good) they're in court and the lights go out, when they flicker on again like 5 different people are pointing their guns at the suspect in court (thinking its an escape attempt). The judge smiles and says something like this: "a glowing example of our constitutional right to carry firearms".
 
Remember in Tombstone when Verge becomes sheriff and creats the policy that nobody can carry guns in town.:rolleyes:
I like the weapons they use in "24" with Keifer and his trusty USP.

On a sidenote, did anybody catch the episode of Criminal Minds the other night?
 
Wow Doug, you can't be serious. The Mummy was in 1999, 5+ years ago.

Of the top 10 grossing movies of 2005, at least 3 have a positive spin on guns.
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Years/2005/top-grossing

The same for 2004
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Years/2004/top-grossing


And at least 4 of 2003, 5 in 2002, and 5 in 2001 incluing "The Mummy Returns."

You gotta get out more.

By contrast, the Runaway Jury in 2003 that vilified guns (but the book was about tobacco) did not come close to the top 10.
 
Hey DNS, could you please identify which of those movies on those lists that you are saying portrays gun use in a positive light? :scrutiny:
 
Forget about the Mummy Returns didn't remember that one like the first as I thought the story and special effects were a little....overdone (more like watching a road runner cartoon than indiana jones adventure)
Even the story of Batman (fortunately Batman Begins didn't home in on this point at any great length) is about Bruce Wayne's parents getting killed with a gun. A point that the comic book and animated tv series stress all the time. YOu alway hear Bruce Wayne and Batman talk about how much they don't like guns so they just knock people out with fist and batarangs.

In jungle movies made in the past 20 years the bad guy are always big game hunters with guns and good guys are always PC environmental experts who know everything about everything. 1976 King Kong, King Kong Lives 1986, Anaconda.
 
Welcome to the Jungle with The Rock portrayed guns positively. The Rock's character, a guy who collected debts, was totally against guns because he thought they caused more violence. He learned the truth, though - in the last showdown he finally picked up two shotguns and blew the bad guys to hell. Cool movie.
 
Swiss...Im not sure if the release of that movie was different in switzerland, but here he didn't like guns not because they caused more violence, but because he caused more violence, something he didn't like:) OH and what about the Matrix?? Neo used guns to kill the "evil agents":)
 
I am watching the 2005 miniseries "Into the West" on DVD rightnow. Much of the scenes with guns paints them poorly. Cheyenne kill Lakota because they have guns, Whites kill INdians because they have guns, guns = bad.

Then, in episode three, there is a scene where an older Jackob Wheeler is seeing his youngest son off. The boy intends to go join the Army and fight in the civil war. Jackob meets him in the barn and tells him to take his own revolver with him. He states he would feel better if he had a gun that had "killed before" and that "there are men in this world who mean you harm so do not be afraid to use it." For all the evil presentation of guns up until then that scene really tipped the scales to our side.

The Wheelers of Kanasa attempt to hold of Quantirl's raiders with guns but fail miserably...
 
Road to Perdition comes to mind. Makes me want to go spend way too much money on a 1911 :)

There are tons of instances of guns being used by the good guys to do good, but we just don't notice it because folks like us assume that guns are used for the purposes of moral good and don't think twice about it.
 
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