In the Limey, Terrence Stamp gets two pistols from a guy off the street, a nice small caliber automatic and an old beater revolver. You wonder why he needs two guns, and it’s still at the start of the movie, and he lets the men he’s trying to intimidate take the beater gun from him, beat him up and toss him on the street. I remember watching for the first time and thinking, he’s not so tough. But then the he gets up, goes back inside, and the other gun comes into play.
The best part of this scene is Stamp’s dainty stride on the way back into the warehouse.
Okay, the 3x3 police don’t have enough paddy wagons to bring in all you guys who have missed the point. But I guess there’s no point trying to police the utter lawlessness of these threads. They’re a 3x3 libertarian’s paradise!
Anyway, here’s the inspiration for the topic:
I was basically looking for variations of that scene. And it’s worth noting there’s a reason Bickle asks about the .44 magnum. This scene is shortly after Scorcese in the back of the cab holding forth about the power of a .44 magnum.
Hmm, okay, maybe I’m not hating being able to embed Youtube videos. Here’s the scene Dingus and I picked from Blue Ruin as our favorites.
It goes better with context – both leading up to and following the scene – but it’s our favorite variation on that Taxi Driver concept of the guy getting the gun.
It reminds me of the commentary track story that David Fincher told on one of the…um…commentary tracks of Se7en. One of the marketing cards said something like, "How much would you like to see a movie with Brad Pitt from Legends of the Fall and Morgan Freeman from…WAIT FOR IT…Driving Miss Daisy?
Seriously. Driving Miss Daisy
And then the people they pitched that to sat through Seven. Hm. I always think of those people who went into those screenings who loved Legends of the Fall and Driving Miss Daisy and try to picture the looks of horror on their faces as that weird metal penis contraption Polaroid is presented. How that didn’t test well I’ll never know.
However, the truly cool part of the commentary track, as I remember it–it’s been a few years–is how David Fincher lauds the marketing people. How he makes it clear that their job is a really tough one. That they have to look at every movie as something they have to salvage, and their job is how in the world to save this piece of trash. No matter how good it actually may be. I like his take (as I remember it). I like how he does that. And I love those commentary tracks.
You know we talked about the sigh in the scene from The Guest, but damn. Check out his sigh, and what that means, at the end of that clip of The Rover.
It’s heartbreaking. That little tiny moment.
And he only takes the one gun.
Damn this is such a good pick. I’m so freaking annoyed that it didn’t even occur to me.
This may get me put in jail, but I gotta go with it. John Wick. He technically already “owns” the guns, but they aren’t in his possession. The scene has a Russian mob boss describing who John Wick is and why his son should be so afraid of him, interspersed with John walking in to his basement carrying a sledgehammer. He starts to slam the sledgehammer in to the basement floor, breaking up the concrete. At the conclusion of the Russian speech, John pulls out a large case, pops open the lock, and reveals a set of pristine pistols, several clips of ammo and stacks of gold coins.
Oh, hey, we can embed clips now! Nice. NSFW language warning:
Next, Trading Places
The scene itself is more an illustration of the out-of-touch rich man attempting to convince a jaded pawn shop owner that he should pay more than $50 for his $6000 watch. After giving up and accepting the $50, he looks down in the display case, sees a pistol, and asks how much it is. The expression on the pawn shop owner’s face is what makes the scene for me.
I love this one too and it’s even better than you describe it. The footage you found cuts out the best part, which comes just before. It’s not a gun store. It’s a sporting goods store. Arnie breaks in, goes over to a counter, starts feeling under it, and activates a secret switch which reveals a hidden room with an arsenal good enough to outfit a battalion. It’s so wonderfully and perfectly absurd, and 80s, and Arnie. A year or two after consuming the amazingness of Commando friends and I were doing Twilight 2000 campaigns that started with us looting forgotten caches from the secret rooms in ruined sporting goods stores. Good times.
The Silverado scene doesn’t feature Paden building a gun from parts like the Tuco scene (although I swear that is paid homage to in another western). Rather, the store owner ends up giving Paden whatever gun + ammo can be had for 10 bucks or whatever, which is a piece of junk that literally falls apart in Paden’s hands when he starts playing with it. So he’s rebuilding the gun from its own parts, frantically, while trying to catch the thief. I do love that scene.
Another great gun store scene is the one in The Quick and the Dead, when John Herod takes Cort into The Kid’s store to get a gun for the up coming duel. I love DiCaprio’s salesmanship and loving attention to detail on each weapon. “Me and Jesse James think this is the fastest gun in the west”. but John will have none of it, and Cort is left with “the biggest piece of shit in the store” for five bucks. “Mister, I wouldn’t sell it if it didn’t shoot straight”.
My favorite scene, in the vein of Commando, is Aliens. When the group returns to the working Rover and Ripley is gearing up to go rescue Newt. Pulse Rifle. Flamer. Electrical tape to tie them together. More tape for the device that homes in on Newts tracker. Grenade Belt because you never know. Ripley is on the war path and hell is following with her. I adore this scene. I’ve dreampt variants of it several times in my life (in one, I was having to clean out an infestation of Aliens that lived under my school. I decided to go 2x pulse rifle/flamer combo because “Ripley ran out of stuff for both and I may be down there awhile”). It is one of the all time great gun-power up scenes in cinema. Made all the more awesome because it turns out there’s a final confrontation after this, and loader beats guns no question (rule of cool baby).
Honorable mention to the ridiculous but at the same time interesting and even kind of underrated original Red Dawn. The team starts out using bows and hunting rifles, but slowly upgrade to AK-47s, fixed machine guns, grenades, and RPGs. All soviet equipment scavenged from their victories.
Is that the one where Jack Black gets his hand shot off by the Jackal? If not, whatever the name of the movie is, Jack Black plays a greasy dude who has just sold a very powerful gun to a hitman, who then uses Jack as a target to site the weapon he just acquired. It’s such a grizzly scene.
ah, a little googling and it looks like it’s the 1997 version I’m thinking of.
I loved the gun shop scene in Terminator, but I also thought the weapons cache in Terminator 2 was great. I couldn’t find the full scene, but I remember the Terminator hauling the cover off this cellar out in the desert which had loads of assault rifles and other assorted weaponry under blankets. Arnold picks up the grenade launcher and delivers a perfect “Excellent.”
