Rational Insanity

I know this wouldn't be a realistic situation, but it makes for a great over the top movie eh?

I'd love for your friends to critique my picture. I'd probably get ripped, but I enjoy comments good or bad.

Tommy,

 

I am a friend of Mike's. I have some tactical experience and will help you if I can. Here's my 2 cents....

 

The problem with assessing the photo above from a tactical perspective is that there is no way, from a snap shot, to be able to tell what occured before that moment in time or what is going to happen after. The reason this is important is that tactical/combative situations are fluid and therefore do not lend themselves well to assesment in a "freeze frame". That said, here are my observations:

 

1. Your combatants look like they are off balance.

 

2. They also look as though they really don't know what they are doing with the pistols in their hands.

 

3. Additionally, no experienced pistolero is going to put himself in a position of such close proximity to another. The odds of being disarmed are too great.

 

4. Being that neither of the subjects seems to have a good grasp on his weapon, their alignment is incorrect, and their balance is bad, either should be able to disarm the other with a minimum of skill and would therefore not bother to draw his own weapon.

 

5. If one had drawn a weapon at that range, the other would not have time to bring a weapon to bear before he got shot.

 

6. Your subject on the right is holding his pistol in a pseudo-gang banger grip and as such, his wrist alignment is poor and to bring his weapon to bear, he likely created a lot of "muzzle sweep" which is in and of itself tactically unsound.

 

I hope that helps some. Please don't take my commentary as inflamatory. It is not intended to be so. If you have further questions or would like to provide some information that may effect my assessment, I will continue to help as much as I can.

For what it's worth, I am also an aquaintance of Mike's (don't hold that against him)

 

I'm in agreement with all the points Les (yup, I know him too) has mentioned. But would suggest the following since this is a "promo" pic and has no basis in reality.

 

Perhaps the semi-auto pistol should have the slide locked to the rear indicating that it is empty. (Shades of Gross Pointe Blank)

 

That would lend some degree of plausability to the situation for a "casual enthuseast" of firearms.

 

In order to "cure" some of the other things that have been mentioned, someone would have to spring for a consultant and/or training for the actors. Being that you are in the editing stage and that it is a student film, I'm thinking those are a moot point.

 

Having "worked" on a few student films myself, I'll wish you luck with the project. I worked on one project that was scrubbed for the most painfull of all reasons. At a class review of the dailys, the words "I don't get it" were uttered repeatedly. Really glad I was just a grip.

Thanks for the suggestion guys. I intentionally had the guy on the right to hold the gun "gang banger" style because he is a drug lord that learned everything from the streets, to show that the character had no formal weapons training. The guy on the left is a cop "gone bad" so to speak. He is a cop who is taking things into his own hands regardless of the law governing his badge.

 

The reason why they are this close is that they are both sitting at a table with a chess board. The guy on the right lets the cop on the left sit and chat close to him for "amusement" thinking the law would protect him, since a cop cannot just barge in and shoot him with no plausible cause and cannot arrest him with no warrant. The cop sits, chats and then pulls the gun on the guy on the right, surprising him. In reaction, he too draws his gun and now it is just one big game of bluff. Will the cop decide to pull the trigger or is he bluffing? Or is the drug dealer right in that the cop isn't psycho enough to break the law to take him out.

 

I hope things make more sense now hehe. I would love to hear your critiques now after knowing this.

 

Tom

A typical Hollywood-action-movie shot. This could easily have been a still from a "Die Hard" type of movie. As a film promo it works just fine.