Hollow Tipped Bullet... "Lethal Weapon"& other Movies

Post by Spencerman

This has been really bugging me evr scince I first saw the movie when it was first released about 20 years ago, and it concerns a hollow tipped bullet. The movie to which I refer is Lethal Weapon. Specifically the scene fairly near to the start when Mel Gibsons charachter is sitting watching the tv and he decides to shoot himself in the head with his Beretta 92F. Now, heres the thing. They show a nice close up of Mel loading a bullet into his gun. As far as I can see it is just a plain old simple 9mm parabellum round. Later on in the movie, after the scene with the jumper on the building, he has an altercation with Danny Glovers charachter about whether or not he really wants to kill himself. Mel proceeds to explain how he even has a special bullet with a hollow tip, to make sure that he does the job right and blow the back of his head right off, and he shows Danny this 9mm parabellum round. Has anyone seen the hollow point that he refers to? Maybe someone knows a reason why they never showed one, but surely this has to be one of the biggest movie gaffs ever as it makes such a point (no pun intended) of the fact that it is not an ordinary bullet! This has really bugged me for about 20 years, sad as it may seem, but I wanted to get it off my chest, and I wondered what other peoples thoughts on that subject were.
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Post by Phobus

Hi Spencerman ,

Being a bit of a film fan myself and especially QUALITY action movies I am aware of the scene and the film - being as it is a bit of a classic on a ( near ) par to Die Hard 1 , I would say .

I would be struggling to name a recent QUALITY action film . Post 911 they seem to have stopped making them - ok - bar Die Hard 4 which I have not yet seen . Peacemaker / executive decision/ B.H.Down all pretty old .

Batman Begins stands out to me .

Anyway , re : the scene . Looks like a regular hollowpoint to me and I always thought it absurd that he thought he would need a " special " bullet to kill himself at point blank range ? Duuhh !!!

Always reminds me of another classic and personal favourite Day of the Jackal where we see .22 long rifle bullets hollowed out and filled with mercury for the hit on De Gaul . We see him in the French forest zeroing the rifle ( what a novel method with the twisted sling round the tree - never seen that before or since ) hits the mellon dead centre after adjusting the tele then chambers a mercury tip and KERSPLATT !!

One other annoying gun untruth / myth to ponder . In Die Hard 2 , Mclaine talks to the security cop chief about the terrorists and describes their GLOCK pistol as a " porcelain handgun won,t show up on your airport metal detectors and costs more than you earn in a month !! "

No metal in a Glock 17 ? Are you sure ?

CARL.
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Post by Spencerman

In Die Hard 2 he is referring to a Glock 7, not 17, but I have never heard of that one in the real world. Also, while I am at it, in lethal weapon 2 Gibson has the audacity to ask the bad guy what his gun is, having never seen anything like it even on the police force. The gun he refers to in an mp5k, and I seem to remember him running around with an mp5 in the finale of Weapon 1, so surely he would have known what the gun was, it wasnt as if the mp5k was a brand new gun at the time!
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Post by 2sharp

Some people has actually managed to shoot themselves in the head and survive..
So maybe a hollowpoint isn't such a bad idea

I always find it interesting with "gun-facts" in movies, sad to say i think quite a lot of the regular movieviewers base their knowledge about guns from movies.
I can [somewhat] accept the idea that screenwriters would take some "artistic liberty" and inventing/tweaking gun facts, but i think it shouldn't really be needed. And spreading mis-information is never a good idea.

Per Glock Inc. there has never-ever been a Glock 7. Or such a beast as described in Die Hard.

Looking forward to Die Hard 4.0

Twisting a rifle to a tree or similar isn't un-common, as long as you let the barrel be free from any pressure it provides quite a stable platform. I'm not be any means a sharpshooter or sniper so i have never tried it out but i've heard it being discussed and seen it in some sniper manuals.

The Mp5 (HK64) has been around since 1964 so it isn't a very new gun, altough totally lovely
According to HKPro the MP5K has been around since 1976.
http://hkpro.com/mp5k.htm
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Post by Phobus

2Sharp wrote:

Some people has actually managed to shoot themselves in the head and survive..
So maybe a hollowpoint isn't such a bad idea

Thanks 2Sharp ,

Shot themselves in the head and survived ? Must have not been trying very hard I would have thought !

A 12 gauge in the mouth or 9 mm for that matter is going to ruin your day - permanently !! ? No ?

Anyway , I just thought of a post 9 11 ( ? ) quality action film which I think was probably SO good the writers had to change BOND from a cultured English gentleman into Rambo

The BOURNE movies . How good are those two movies ? And they also brought to mind another possible gun myth .

Flicking the slides off pistols whilst they are in the enemies hands . Also seen in Lethal Weapon 4 by Jet Li - snatches the slide off Mels Beretta . Please tell me that is not REALLY possible to do ??

Matt Damon at one point holds the German Officers pistol ( Sig ? H&K ? ) and in one movement takes the slide off the frame and throws it to the ground - blimey , instant field strip !!

CARL.
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Post by Pydracor

I thought about that "flicking the slides off of pistols" part in Letahl Weapon 4, too, and I'd say it's not possible, as the inserted magazin would block the slide from sliding forward. It would be impossible (even for someone like Jet Li ) to grab the slide, push the mag release button AND at the same time use the slide release lever.
If I were a movie maker, I'd let the "disarmer" rather push back the slide to eject the loaded round and at the same time push the mag release button to let the mag drop out.

I agree that it's sometimes a bit hard to watch action movies, when you know more about guns than the average film fan...

Post by Phil_D

Not having a real steel version of the Beretta but its totally possible with the MGC version, you don't need to remove the mag as the slide comes off the front, thumb on the release button and the forefinger pushes the slide release catch down and the slide just slides off !
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Post by Pydracor

Oh ok, thanks for the info, there goes my theory
In that case, it's very likely, that it's possible on a realsteel too...

Post by Phobus

Thats great ,

the next time someone points a Beretta 92 FS at me I will know EXACTLY what to do !!

CARL.
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Post by Spencerman

All well and good if you can do all that quicker than someone already pointing the gun at you can pull the trigger! I belive that this was first seen on film in a low budget police thriller many years ago, just as beretta was becoming popular thanks to lethal 1, the name of which escapes me as it was so bad that I didnt make it past the point when the police woman pulled the slide off the baddies beretta, that just did it for me, as it wasnt anywhere near as quick as Jet Li. It has indeed been in a few large budget films since then. Maybe we should all write to beretta to complain as it seems that this 'flaw' on thier guns continues to this day!
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Post by Jez_JRP

Re: the flicking the slide off pistols thing....

It is VERY possible with some models. And having personally tried it with the help of my M9 and my brother to hold it, in the right circumstances you could do it without too much bother. The way the M9 takes down makes it easier than some others. With a Glock, it'd be nigh on impossible unless you had some pretty sick claws to grope the little button thing.

Oh, and if you grab the beretta's top half and manage to force the slide back even 1/8th inch, it won't fire So the idea I think is you grab the slide, put pressure on it to move it backwards a bit, then providing you aren't dead yet, you can flip the lever down and take her to bits I don't particularly fancy trying it with a real one, but with a toy one, the theory works at least!

I think I read something about the M92F having to be re-designed in the early stages to make it harder... perhaps that's a load of crap, but I'm sure I read it somewhere.

Post by gavin

the best thing to do is to not trust anthing from films i dont remember what film it was but i remember a guy saying remember to take the safty off your glock

Post by fightdesigner

Easy enough to see the appeal for filmmakers- it looks cool, and it's visibly, obviously a de-fanged weapon at that point... unlike some of the other real-life techniques, like dropping the mag on certain models, grabbing the cylinder of a revolver so it can't turn, or even just holding the slide back a bit so it's out of battery, as described in an earlier post here - all of which would require some sort of explanation in the script on why or how it worked, lest most of the audience just not understand why the guy didn't just get shot.
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Post by figaro

Presuming, Phobus that by QUALITY you infer films of a larger budget.
If so, these pictures require a theatrical release, a theatrical release needs a large audience, the largest ticket buying audience in the US/UK is teenage or under.

This translates itself into a rather general misconception (I believe) that to score with a large audience the film should be dumbed down a bit.

(Day of the Jackal, as Fred Zinneman made it would probably be lucky to go straight to DVD if it was released today.)

There are a few major studio pics that slip through with genuine attention paid to weapons authenticity, Bourne, MI:series, Michael Mann or Spielberg's pics and others, but as you see these are usually produced by "auteurs" (whether it's the actor/director or producer) with the power to make the film as they want, and insist on a degree of technical authenticity.

If you're looking for richer, more diverse action subject matter, you might try the foreign film section of your video store, there are some outstanding Korean action movies being made, City of Violence-- the Korean war epic Tae Guk Gi was mesmerizing, better in many ways than S' Private Ryan, some awesome Thai action movies, Bangkok Dangerous, Ong Bak, Tom Yum Goom and I saw a terrific French WW2 film about the Algerians in action, Days of Glory, also District 13 was knock-out, too. Italian Gangster pic, Criminale Romanza.

There is strangely less pressure on some of these foreign film-makers to score with a huge audience, many countries, offer tax incentives and subsidised bonuses to it's national film makers taking the edge off pure survival. More personalized and intimate films are actually incouraged.

There is certainly less pressure on foreign film makers to dumb down their action movies.

Of course quality in a movie is to a certain degree in the eye of the beholder, to twist a cliche.

There are great action films are out there, just not always at the multiplex.

JJ.
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Post by fightdesigner

As I recall, District B-13 used that combat-field-strip maneuver with an M92 also... damn fun movie, but that has nothing to do with the realism or writing, and all to do with the movement and fights.
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