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Ronin / The Wild Bunch

1526 Views 23 Replies 11 Participants Last post by  Rob Garrett
Okay guys, you gave me your thoughts on Way of the Gun. Now how about Ronin, The Wild Bunch, or any other flick with good gun play, tactics, or quotes!!!!

Let's have some fun.

Rob
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Oooo! Ronin! Nice gunwork (and sound FX for the gunshots), and the car chases were most excellent!
Hello. "The Wild Bunch" is my favorite all time film...so far.
Kind of identified with "Pike" and his sense of loyalty and leadership. Some tech errors in terms of the machinegun and a minor this and that, but overall, it was fine.

"Ronin" was OK, but nothing special to me.

"Heat" on the other hand was pretty darned grand in my view as was "Thief."

Best.
The Wild Bunch was Peckinpah's greatest movie and one of my all-time favorites. It is a great movie that happens to have some great action sequences. It is so good that I can forgive such things a Coffer (Strother Martin) having an 03-A3 in the opening scene ambush.

RONIN has a number of very good action sequences, but strikes me...overall...as a mediocre movie.

Rosco
Guys,

You have to understand, Rosco is The movie critic of the gun forums. I have read his exhaustive works and found them to be a work of art! LOL We better get out a dictionary if he continues in his normal fashion!!!

Have a great day.

Rob
Yeah, but I saw an M249 in Ronin and since I had to carry one for it made the movie for me. :grin: Of course the kick ass car chases didn't hurt much either

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Just a GI on 2001-05-02 19:28 ]</font>
Definitely The Wild Bunch.

As for Ronin, I agree with Mr. Benson.

Denny
Wild Bunch definitely gets two guns up!! :grin: To me, it is the standard by which we should judge movies in the genre. Irrespective of genre, it still stands among the best for cinematic excellence. A true classic.

Ronin was very good, but not great in my book. Seeing a 1911 featured is always good. Like Pete, I thought the sound effects were of note. I could have lived with out many yards of footage. The stunt driving was awesome! Really liked the big chase scene.

I'm with Stephen on Heat and Thief. They are two of my favorite action movies. Both rank ahead of Ronin on my all-time best list. James Caan's performance in Thief was one of his finest. IMO, he was also the best actor in Way of The Gun. They should have given him a 1911!

DD
Outlaw Jose Wales, Heat, Ronin and the original Getaway with Steve Mcqueen all very good movies. The Sand Pebbles also with Steve McQueen if you like weapons from the 1920s is a good movie..........Mike
I love Steve McQueen movies. Bullitt was Great. Did you gentlemen know that McQueen was US Marine. He was such a good Marine that he was part of Harry Truman's Color Guard. Plus the Man knew guns and cars. Truely the King of Cool.
Sand Pebbles was good as well. I like the movie poster for the Getaway nice big pic of a 1911.
Had fogotten all about the Sand Pebbles. Mc knew how to put a BAR to good use. I was so impressed with his use of the High Standard "Riot Gun" in the Getaway, I went out and bought one, had it stolen, and bought another. I think the HS 8113 was the first s/g equipped with an extended magazine tube from the factory.

Rob
I'm not a big Nick Nolte fan, but FAREWELL TO THE KING is a very good movie...with lots of circa-WWII weaponry.

THIEF and HEAT get a lot of well-deserved attention in these discussions, but there's another Michael Mann movie which ought be considered-- LAST OF THE MOHICANS. I particularly like the ambush of Col. Munro's forces after surrendering the fort. The war cries and the initial desultory musket fire, as both sides worked themselves up to engage, really captured the manner in which these types of actions generally unfolded. Wes Studi, as Magua, turned in a great performance (as always).

THE WAY OF THE GUN also garners a lot of attention. A similarly named John Frankenheimer movie YEAR OF THE GUN doesn't have as much gunplay, but pretty accurately depicts the tactics used by Italy's red brigades.

Of course, no list of gun/war movies could be complete without mentioning THE WILD GEESE (the Richard Burton/Richard Harris one...not to be confused with the egregious stink-bomb WILD GEESE II). Reportedly, a couple of the actors playing minor roles had actually served with "Mad Mike" Hoare. FN-FAL's, Uzi's, FN-MAG's, all against a backdrop of "soldiers of MIS-fortune" in Africa. Stirring stuff!

In a similar vein, THE DOGS OF WAR is a good one. It is worth the rental just for the opening scene involving the proverbial "last plane out". The Grenville grenade launcher is a bit overused in the finale battle (Hollywood simply MUST have its big, fiery explosions), but it's still a worthwhile flick.

Cornell Wilde's THE NAKED PREY isn't a "gun" movie, per se, but early in the movie there is some great footage of REAL elephant shooting. Of course, ZULU is a classic. The later ZULU DAWN is a great movie too. It deals with the British rout at Isandlwana, which led up to the defense of Rourke's Drift depicted in ZULU.

The William Freidkin remake of the French THE WAGES OF FEAR, which is inexplicably entitled SORCERER, starring Roy Scheider, isn't a "gun movie", but I'd wager that the "gun movie" fans on this list would like it...a lot.

Rosco

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rosco Benson on 2001-05-03 09:40 ]</font>
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Rosco,
The depth of your knowledge and memory continues to amaze me! Thanks,
Rob
Thanks, Rob, Of course, I've yet to figure out any way to make money off of the fact that I tend to have pretty good recall of things that interested and/or amused me.:sad:

Another couple movies that are worth the time and which, loosely, fall into our "gun/war" category. LION OF THE DESERT stars Anthony Quinn as an Arab leader resisting the Italian's occupation of Northeast Africa just prior to WWII. The Italian commander is well-played by Oliver Reed (always a favorite of mine). An interesting tidbit is that Libya's Kadaffi bankrolled the production.

THE BEAST follows a doomed Russian tank crew in Afghanistan. Lost and pursued by Afghan rebels, the tank's commander throws out a rebellious crew member to slow down his pursuers (hey, torture takes TIME, right?). Instead, the abandoned crew member is given sanctuary and joins the Afghans' pursuit of the tank to extract his revenge. Perhaps more of an RPG movie than a "gun" movie.

Rosco

P.S. - How could I ever forget to include John Milius' masterful RED DAWN. It ought to be required watching in every school in America. I also forgot the great DEATH WISH (the original only...the sequels are practically unwatchable).



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rosco Benson on 2001-05-03 11:14 ]</font>
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3
We gotta give Clint Eastwood his props for gun work, starting with Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western trilogy: A Fistfull of Dollars, A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.




And who can forget the Dirty Harry movies. A lot of Model 29s with 8 3/8" barrels were sold by S&W due to Clint. Even caused something of a revival of interest in the Auto Mag pistol.



But perhaps the best movie Clint Eastwood has ever done is Unforgiven. I would go as far as to say it is easily the best Western of the last two decades. Some critics called it the most significant movie of the 90s. Not since Sam Peckinpah broke new ground with a Western movie where bullets actually hurt and men spilled real blood, had a director effectively taken the genre to another level. As a director, Clint blurred the line between the usual predictable divisions between good and evil. He gave us characters of unusual depth and substance and more fully fleshed out than any Western Hollywood has ever done. Eastwood's portrayal of the William Munny character was nothing short of sensational. The entire cast was excellent and the Oscar winning performance by Gene Hackman was a powerful one. Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris turned in great performances as well. I consider it one of the best Westerns ever made. It gets a DD four paws up rating!! :cool:



DD

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Desert Dog on 2001-05-04 01:18 ]</font>
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DD

Thanks for the trip down memory lane! I have to agree that Unforgiven is one of the few newer movies that is in the same class as The Wild Bunch!

For military movies, I thought the SpeOps guys in The Rock did pretty good. I understand that an ex-Seal was the tech advisor for the movie.

Rob
Rob,

I see ya changed your signature from the Machiavelli quote, to that one the Joe Sarno character uttered. I thought that line was quintessential James Caan. In fact, it was one of my favorite lines in the whole movie! :smile:

DD
DD,

Remember the line from "Three Days of the Condor" when John Houseman was asked about the old days? His reply, "I miss the clarity."

Ain't it so!

Rob
Great line Rob! :smile:

Speaking of great lines... One of my favorites is in Unforgiven when the 'Schofield Kid' (Jaime Woolvet) shoots the guy in the outhouse. Having previously bragged how many men he had killed, he now reveals he has never really killed anyone before and as he is sobbing and slugging whiskey straight from the bottle, he says to Munny, "They had it coming", to which Munny solemnly replies, “We all have it coming, kid.”

DD
Can't remeber the line but something about a 1911 and age in RONIN by Deniro. Selleck's line from Crossfire trail, "that aint shooting, it's killing"
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