Grew up watching western movies and never considered why they missed so much when I was young. Now that I'm older, my thoughts are why can't you shoot straight, at least pretend to re-load, how come the horses never get hit, and hard to shoot straight when your hand is covering the gun sights. Anyone else a movie critic when watching Westerns or war movies?

Yes, I'm guilty of counting shots when a gunfight starts.

I did like the first few episodes of the series Hell On Wheels. The gunfights seemed realistic - guns coming apart, showing what a PITA the early ones were to reload, etc.

A couple of things a Western will never be able to accurately convey to the audience: the amount of vermin (fleas, rats, mice, etc.) and...the SMELLS.

Same...it's a huge pet peeve of mine. Yeah, that 6 shooter can't fire off 15 rounds in a row, Lol.

Not a western but I was watching "To Hell and Back" this weekend. Guys would get shot, stand up, do a twirl and fall over dead. Dramatic license gone to far.

The one I don't get is when they fan their 45's and hit with all 10 bullets.

Yeah, gun leather and firearms that aren't period correct irk me.

Continuity errors really bug me. Some are more obvious than others.

The military/war movies get me. A few are done well, but mostly I just sit through the entire movie cringing. I've even offered to do free consulting but no takers yet.

Household 6 is always watching those cheesy Hallmark home-for-the-holidays type movies and they're the absolute worst. Soldier comes home for Christmas... wearing his uniform completely wrong...old neck tab on the original ACUs (now permanently removed from current version of our uniform) fully closed as if he's been wearing body armor on the plane. Wearing his headgear like a ball cap... hair down to his arse... aaaaarrrrggghhhh!

I'm not a big critic of westerns, but after 8 years of active duty in the Army and then 12 more in the Reserves, I find a lot of Military movies unwatchable.

kry226 & nsmike,

I understand they really tried to be as authentic as possible with Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers.

What do you think?

I think they did really well and probably as true to real life as possible. WW2 has been studied like no other war and on projects that large and important, they use historians to ensure the uniforms (and all other equipment and scenery) are all to-period, and those guys don't miss a single thread... it would be insulting to their craft to make a mistake like that. Doesn't mean there are no mistakes, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find them.

IIRC, another one I think they did really well with is "Courage Under Fire" with Denzel Washington, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Meg Ryan. Like most movies, there's a little too much "hooah," but the uniforms are 99% done well.

"We were Soldiers" was also well done, as well as "Full Metal Jacket." Forrest Gump did OK too.

Most modern military movies miss the mark though, in either uniform, culture, or conduct.

But heck, I have Soldiers now who still don't know how to wear their uniform correctly.

Kinda like a cop watching a cop movie. Very hard to do

Yup

Have yall ever seen the car in the background of the Horse Soldiers?

Not bad I cringed a bit when they were moving too close together. 12 Strong was pretty good but a bit over the top. They didn't properly depict the Combat Air Controller and took some Hollywood license with the combat scenes.

My pet peeve in westerns is the overly long delay between when the gun is fired and when the bullet hits the target (usually a watering trough).

What about Blackhawk Down?

BHD is tougher because of the way Bowden wrote it, combining certain characters into a single character. It's WAY OVER the top on the hooah factor. I've met several of participants of the Battle of Mogudishu, and their statements about the movie are that it's accurate in that it happened in 1993, it was in the Mog, and a Blackhawk crashed. They were unimpressed with everything else.

I'll have to go back and re-watch the movie to check for uniform inconsistencies, but nothing jumps out at me from memory.

One thing is for certain, Shughart and Gordon knew EXACTLY what they were getting into, and they went anyway. God bless them.

Exactly. 99.9% of all police shows and movies are simply atrocious.

Dang, did not know that. Probably my favorite movie ever.

I have watched several of the documentaries about the actual incident and always wondered why they were so much different than the movie. Just figured their units were in a different part of the city than what took place in the movie.

I remember a special on SPR, BoB or both, they brought that up. It was driven by the camera and cinematography requirements.

The newer movies are getting VERY close to being real. Just ask Alec Baldwin

I have the "Grit" channel. Non-stop OLD westerns. Last night I Watched John Wayne in HONDO then TOMESTONE with Kirk Douglas as Doc Holiday and a VERY young Denise Hopper.

Love John Wick movies, lots of cool guns

As movies go, it's great and I don't want burst a bubble on that. But yup, there were lots of other troops in the city then. One of my former bosses was a platoon leader with 10th Mountain in Mogudishu at that time and he has some high adventure stories to tell. In fact, there is so much that happened there that almost no one knows about, except the people who were, the people to whom they told stories, and maybe a handful of historians. Folks only know BHD, but there's so much more than that.

I like watching westerns and noticing far off contrails in the sky.

In Black Hawk Down there is a scene where Shughart gives Durant Gordon's rifle. Prior to that Durant is shown with the rifle across his lap.