I will throw in the same sentiment towards the sword fights so far mentioned. Just because people “get tired” and “get hurt” in a sword fight, does not make it realistic.
And braveheart? The tactics were wrong, the armor and weapons were wrong, the depiction of the locations of battles were wrong…
Proof of Life had one of the more realistic gunfights I’ve ever seen.
Does Children of Men count? How does that rate, experts?
I came in to say Way of the Gun; Highly realistic gunhandling, courtesy of an ex-Navy SEAL consultant, who is the director Chris McQuarrie’s brother (please note; possible BS in the previous statement; I could IMDB it for facts, but… meh. I’m beat).
Also a great scene near the end where one of the characters falls on some glass bottles and is pretty much taken out of the rest of the movie by his injuries; movies had taught me that glass is a minor inconvienince, whereby one could be struck by bottles, hurled through plate glass windows and have their heads pushed through car windows and suffer only mild discomfort. Not so here.
Most of the characters’ names are taken from real people, but that’s about it. Though fictional versions of his life began to obscure the facts even while he was still alive and the film is an extension of the standard legendary tradition via Walter Scott, etc. I recommend David Stevenson’s recentish biography The Hunt for Rob Roy as the definitive scholarly dismantling of that tradition.
Seemed realistic to me. The especially long steady-cam shots helped add realism.
I’ve only seen the first one, but it seemed to imply that the “training” Bourne and the other assassins had undergone was a bit on the science fictiony side of things. It didn’t detail just what the training was, or what it specifically allowed them to do, so I don’t know how well it works under the OP’s “magic is okay if it’s consistent and otherwise realistic” clause.
I came in to mention this exact scene in Grosse Pointe Blank, that amazingly-choreographed fight between John Cusack and kickboxing legend Benny “The Jet” Urquidez. That’s how a real fight between two trained fighters would go down. No showboating, no fancy moves, just two guys trying like hell to incapacitate their opponent and getting exhausted along the way.
I rather liked the gunfight at the end of Open Range. With one* exception there aren’t any hero shots at a hundred yards after the opening fusillade, just a lot of ducking and weaving by people who wish they were somewhere else. They even had a wounded horse – proof that not every bullet was going where intended.
*Costner fans nine shots from one pistol as he advances on the baddies. In the commentary he apologized for it, saying they had lost count when doing the editing.
Midway. I realize they screwed the pooch by sticking in whatever real combat film they had inappropriatly (divebomer starts run, Corsair finishs it :rolleyes: ), but that stuff actually happend.
They coulda lost the love story, however.
And, it was in SensorRound!!!
Although I absolutely agree with Das Boot and United 93, cited above, I came here to mention my two favorite realistic action films: The Day of the Jackal and Three Days of the Condor.
The first is a tense, well-acted thriller that (AFAIK) is entirely plausible in virtually every detail. Unlike the POS 1997 remake with Bruce Willis, there are no high-tech remote-controlled superweapons or subway crashes, just a clever and inventive bad guy being chased by a just-as-clever cop. And unlike most action films, you’re kind of rooting for the bad guy.
While the second features some slightly dubious technology, and I doubt that the CIA ever operated upscale brownstones in which agents read every book ever printed searching for foreign codes and plots, given the premises, the basic story is notable for its lack of completely impossible things. This sets it apart from about 99.9% of all action films. And it features Faye Dunaway when she was still pretty hot and Max von Sydow as one of the coolest hit men ever.
Well, for starters, the opening scene had junior officers (JOs) dressing down enlisted guys and making them do push-ups. No way–doesn’t happen. Submarine JOs pick on other JOs, not enlisted guys.
IMDB lists a number of errors. The most egregious for me was the sonar display. Any submarine movie trying to be realistic should be able to do enough research from Tom Clancy books to know that the basic passive sonar display is a “waterfall” display, not a radar-type display, because passive sonar only gives you bearing information, not bearing and range info like radar.
BTW, the IMDB “goof” indicating that actors are required by law to have incorrect insignia so that they cannot be prosecuted for “impersonating an officer” is an urban legend. That being said, there were numerous uniform errors in the movie. For one, the CO is erroneously shown wearing his gold dolphins on his Service Dress Blue white shirt.
But the biggest issue is that the whole premise of the movie is flawed. I’ve posted on this before. Rather than repeat everything, I hope you don’t mind if I quote myself. In this thread, I said:
Let me add that for a strategic deterrent system to work, potential adversaries must be made to believe it will work. Let me assure you that it does. If the orders go out, the missiles will fly. Any officer who attempts to subvert this system (as did Denzel Washington in the movie) would be relieved of duty and court-martialed.
Bolding mine.
Exactly!
You know, i’m always a bit confused in threads like this about exactly how it is that we are supposed to evaluate the alleged “realism” of events that most of us have absolutely no experience with.
A few people, for example, have nominated the Bourne movies. Now, let me say at the outset that i love the Bourne movies, and there are certainly many aspects of them that sort of seem realistic to me. But i’d like to know what level of espionage, weapons, and hand-to-hand combat experience these folks have that enables them to opine on the realism of what Bourne does.
[WARNING: spoilers for The Bourne Ultimatum follow]
For example, what exactly was it that makes Bourne’s annihilation of three armed guys in a stairwell “realistic”? Was it the foley of crunching bones, or the lack of a steadycam? Or just the fact that every move Bourne made seemed to disable the guy with the gun just before it could be used to blow his head off?
How realistic was Bourne’s ability to walk into the office of a CIA deputy director in what would probably be one of the most secure buildings in the United States, use a lifted fingerprint and a tape-recorded voice ID to break into his safe, and then leave the building again before it could be completely locked down, despite the fact that people inside knew he was there?
How realistic was Bourne’s ability to ride a motorbike up and down long and steep flights of stairs, or to use a very small angled piece of concrete to jump the bike about 15 vertical feet with a three yard run-up?
I know it might seem like i’m pissing on the parade here, but this question of evaluating how “realistic” an action movie is always seems to presuppose that we know what the hell we’re talking about in the first place, which seems rather unlikely in a world where so many of us have our asses parked in front of a computer and see little action more strenuous than a three-mile jog or a quick trip to the gym.
Of all the action movies I’ve seen, the one that strove hardest for detailed accuracy, AFAIK, was Tora Tora Tora.
What about K19, Robby? I’ve always thought it was a pretty real submarine movie, but, then again, I don’t really know.
I have to veto Bourne, too many computer gimmicks to be taken too seriously.
Now, I like to think I’m not an easily offended person, and I don’t think you meant it this way, but there’s something in me that feels kinda squidgy calling United 93 an “action movie.”
For completely different reasons, I don’t consider Das Boot or anything else where the main action comes from ship-to-ship scenes an “action movie.” Oddly enough, plane-to-plane movies are juuuuust on the border of what I’d allow in the genre, but not any other vehicle besides cars.
But that’s just me.
I don’t know about the sub depiction as a whole, but the portrayal of radiation poisoning was pretty realistic.
Was that the movie with the dog on the nuclear sub? :dubious:
:dubious: Yeah and his surfing down the stairway on the dead guy’s body was unbelievable! :o But not in a credible way!!! 
While the movie itself is obviously not a contender for “most realistic,” there’s a scene in Last Action Hero that’s somewhat relevant to the discussion. An action hero from the world of films is magically transported to the real world, following a super-villain from his film world who has also escaped into the real world. The bad guy’s escaping in a car, and the hero confidently shoots at the car… and then is amazed when it doesn’t blow up.