Way of the Gun: Cinema's most underrated shootouts
Ahead of Ben Wheatley's new film Free Fire, a brutal but hugely entertaining shoot-em-up centered on an arms deal gone wrong, we pay tribute to some of cinemas great, but under-appreciated, gun fights
Some of cinema’s most iconic scenes involve gunfights. How better to place your hero in peril or provide retribution than through the bad guy going down in a hail of bullets? Of course, violence on the silver screen varies across a spectrum of interpretations, from the mindless escapism of action flicks to more realist interpretations, illustrating the horrific actuality of gun crime.
Things can easily be mishandled. More base attempts suck audience involvement from a scene, concentrating on a juvenile fetishisation of the weapons themselves. True impact comes with investment in character, situation and consequence. We can’t escape from the truth that guns are frightening machines, built to kill, and the best filmmakers remind us of this to inject an element of danger into their scenes.
Michael Mann famously binned the studio soundtrack for his showstopper gun battle in Heat, the deafening location recording proving so brutally intimidating in comparison. To provide further tension, the visionaries get creative. Brian De Palma (a set-piece maestro) referenced Eisenstein for his tense and refined train station face-off in The Untouchables. In earlier film Scarface, however, he shed the showmanship for the coke fuelled chaos of Tony Montana's last stand.
Trends come and go. Possibly a reaction to the social and political situation of the day are the squib popping carnage of Bonnie and Clyde or peak Pekinpah at the end of the 60s, as the hopes and dreams of an idealistic generation soured. The reversal is a realist deconstruction, with Clint Eastwood repenting for a career of violent myth-building by showing a gut-shot cowhand bleeding out in agony under his horse, in the seminal The Unforgiven.
Over the decades, cultures have blended and borrowed from each other. While Sergio Leone swapped the samurai swords of Kurosawa for six shooters in his grand operas of revenge, John Woo added a specifically Eastern aesthetic to his close quarters Gun fu choreography. So, while those classic scenes above are ingrained in the psyche of any self-respecting film fan, here are five from around the world you may just have missed.
Way of the Gun (2000)
Dir. Christopher McQuarrie
The underrated cult gem directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar winning-scribe of The Usual Suspects, riffs on many genre tropes. This scene strays close to the 'backs to the wall' Butch and Sundance finale, making the film true to its title in that almost everyone ends up in a bloody heap.
Breaking News (2004)
Dir. Johnnie To
Legend of Hong Kong gangster cinema Johnnie To could fill this list himself, from his highly stylised and choreographed set pieces, to brutally realistic depictions. Encapsulating it all, this breath-taking six-minute single shot shows the build-up, carnage and aftermath of a police ambush, the camera swooping in to track along with the action, leaving the viewer an impotent voyeur of the violence.
A Bittersweet Life (2005)
Dir. Kim Jee-woon
Kim Jee-woon’s revenge drama A Bittersweet Life is a tale of suffering. So, the psychological torment of a gangster betrayed by his boss must be matched by brutal violence in place of sanitised or noble deaths. Here Jee-woon adds ticking clock tension to the uncovering of this rogue gangster’s identity.
A Colt is My Passport (1967)
Dir. Takashi Nomura
Joe Shishido has nowhere to hide in this monochrome 1967 masterpiece from Japan. After borrowing from the samurai classics, Hollywood and Europe repaid the favour by lending spaghetti western aesthetics to Takashi Nomura’s highly stylised film.
Bugsy Malone (1976)
Dir. Alan Parker
Alan Parker is notorious for darker tales, yet a roomful of gangster kids gunning each other down might take things a little too far... unless you make one small alteration to the ammunition, that is. If fatigued by the blood and bullets above, this scene, where shrapnel and plasma are substituted for pie crust and custard, is for you.
Free Fire screens in Glasgow Film Festival: 22 Feb, GFT, 8.45pm | 23 Feb, GFT, 3.45pm
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