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The Top 25 Coolest Movie Guns (#20 – 16)
The Top 25 Coolest Movie Guns: #20-#16
As I said in week one’s intro, there really are only two kinds of movie guns, cool and lame, and based on last week’s response, there are people who have very different ideas on what is cool and what is lame. And that, much like the Internet Movie Firearms Database, is why the internets exist.
Just in case you missed it, you can check out the first week’s list here. And I’m still going to provide links to the relevant IMFDB pages so you can get a look at what the guns in question look like, just in case you don’t know/don’t remember what the gun looks like from the movie.
And now, without any further what have you, let’s dig into week two. What are The Top 25 Coolest Movie Guns, numbers 20 through 16?
The Top 25 Coolest Movie Guns- #20-#16
20- All of the guns in Split Second: Split Second, the Rutger Hauer action/sci-fi/horror classic from 1992 is chock full of cool looking guns, and I really couldn’t pick just one. They’re all cool. From the big revolver handgun that Hauer’s strung out scumbum badass cop Harley Stone brandishes throughout the movie (apparently it’s a paintball gun that’s gussied up to look more ominous and impressive), to the smaller revolver handguns used by other characters, like Stone’s nerdy partner Detective Dick Durkin (Alastair “Neil” Duncan), to the automatic multi-barrel shotguns Stone and Dirkin use while hunting the monster in the subway at the end of the movie (the “big fucking guns!” that Dirkin was talking about in his meltdown after seeing the monster up close for the first time). It’s the future (the movie takes place in a waterlogged London in 2008, which was sixteen years into the future when the movie came out) and everything is bigger, gnarlier, and way more powerful than necessary. I mean, it all becomes necessary when the monster shows up, but before that?
Anyway, the guns in the movie are awesome, and it’s a shame that we never got a sequel. I’d love to know what the guns in the world of Split Second looked like in 2012 or whatever. Just how bigger would the auto shotguns be?
19- Hail Caesar’s shotgun- The Expendables : The Hail Caesar character, played by Terry Crews, has mega powerful guns in all three The Expendables movies, which makes sense since Crews is gigantic. You wouldn’t expect to see him running around with a “pee shooter” machine gun or some nonsense like that. It just wouldn’t look right. The automatic shotgun he uses in the first movie, the AA-12, is simply perfect for the Caesar character. It’s big, and when it’s fired it makes super loud noises and obliterates everything in its path. A human going up against the AA-12 doesn’t stand a chance. And with the drum magazine attached, the total destruction lasts longer because you don’t have to reload as often. Why don’t we see this kind of shotgun in other action movies?
18- Braddock’s Machine Gun with the Grenade Launcher- Braddock: Missing in Action III: When I first saw the video box for the Chuck Norris sequel Braddock: Missing in Action III I was intrigued by the badass looking gun in Chuck’s hands. It looked like some sort of machine gun with a grenade launcher attached under the barrel. Any machine gun that also has a grenade launcher has to be cool. But then, would the gun actually appear in the movie? Think of how many awesome looking video box covers you saw in video stores back in the day that featured stuff that didn’t actually appear in the movie. Thankfully, the gun, which is a Heckler & Koch G3A4 with modified AN/M5 Pyrotechnic Discharger, does appear in the movie, and Chuck’s Colonel James Braddock uses it towards the end of the movie, when he breaks a bunch of multi-race kids out of prison and wastes every bad guy he can find. The grenade launcher also eliminates some guard towers and “standard” action movie stuff like that because why not? What else are you going to use a grenade launcher for (well, besides the rapist that Braddock uses the grenade launcher on)?
It’s too bad that Braddock didn’t get to use the gun throughout the entire ending of the movie. Using that gun certainly would have made destroying that attack chopper much easier at the end of the movie.
The Koch G3A4 With AN/M5 Pyrotechnic Discharger’s IMFDB Page
17-Soviet double barrel assault rifle- Red Scorpion: As soon as you see the double barrel assault rifle, which is a sort of souped-up FN FAL 50, you just know that Dolph Lundgren’s character is going to use it at some point in the movie. The gun, first used by Colonel Zayas (Carmen Argenziano) during a “test the movie’s mega gun at the target practice range” sequence, is absolutely devastating. The gun doesn’t cause anything to explode, but, presumably because of its two barrels, it can shoot two streams of rounds at the same time, which doubles the potential carnage. And when Dolph’s Lt. Nikolai Rachenko finally gets to use the gun at the end of the movie, when Rachenko leads the anti-Soviet rebels into the Commie base to blow it up and kill everyone, the gun more than lives up to its potential. The gun also looks “right” in Dolph’s hands, as opposed to the colonel’s.
I think this gun needs to make a comeback in the next The Expendables. It doesn’t matter if Dolph uses it or a bad guy uses it. It should make an appearance, though.
The Soviet Assault Rifle’s IMFDB Page
Honorable Mention: EM-1 Railgun- Eraser: This is the super gun at the heart of the plot to Eraser. It’s not a real gun at all (the IMFDB page explains why the gun is, in reality, total nonsense), but in the movie it’s the kind of weapon that could shift the balance of power in the world (or, really, just cause all kinds of trouble for people everywhere). The gun shoots “caseless aluminum rounds at close to the speed of light,” which, if real, would be insane. And if you were being hunted by anyone with it you wouldn’t stand a chance. The gun is super powerful and the scope attached to the gun allows the user to see through walls and whatnot. Again, how are you going to fight against that and survive? It make sense for Ahnold Schwarzenegger to do it because he’s Ahnold. But you? Or Vanessa Williams? We’re all doomed.
16- John Wick’s Automatic Shotgun- John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum: Over three movies (and counting), it’s obvious that John Wick, as played by Keanu Reeves, is a killing machine, and that he can kill a guy with pretty much anything. When Wick has a gun, any kind of gun, it’s bad news for the guy that’s in his way. Wick rocked an automatic shotgun in Chapter 2, but in Chapter 3, he made killing bad guys with an automatic shotgun a thing of action movie beauty. Wick simply pulverized those guys in the Continental attack, and it’s amazing considering the amount of body armor they all had on. As soon as Wick grabbed that shotgun, a Benelli M2 Super 90, those poor bastards never stood a chance. That shotgun was the loudest firearm in the movie (and that’s saying something, considering how loud the movie was in the theater I saw it in. Jesus Christ I can still hear it) and easily the one that did the most damage. And watch the way Wick reloads like the shotgun is an extension of his body. It’s amazing and enthralling and terrifying. What kind of shotgun experience are we going to get in whatever they call part 4?
The Benelli M2 Super 90’s IMFDB Page
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Next week: #’s 15-11!
Call me Snake! It’s Lethal! It deals with psychos! It comes in peace! It costs the yakuza money!
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