I have seen it a few times and wouldn't bother with the whole thing, but here I am channel surfing and dropped in on DH and saw them try to ambush Scorpio near the church.
harry has the drop on Scorpio, and S gets dazzled by the searchlight, after firing several rounds Harry gets . . . NO HITS.
Doesn't even wing him.
Perhaps he lost concentration from perving on the swingers.
Yeah, that often happens in movies. Especially in older movies. They were a little bit fumbly with how they shoot action and fights and fight scene logic back then, and some low quality entertainment still is. And even the best actions have a lot of obvious logical mistakes in them, but it's not meant to be perfectly realistic, just give the illusion of realism to the extent that we'll suspend disbelief and enjoy the picture and not noticing its little flaws.
shareExcept in this case, there's no logical mistakes. It's actually quite logical that Harry would not be as accurate when firing from a great distance (across two buildings), compared to closer range with a handgun (across a street).
shareActually, there's one huge logical mistake: his use of a .458 magnum big-game hunting rifle as a short-distance sniper rifle. The scene revealed quite accurately the massive recoil and resulting poor accuracy and aim-recovery issues from using such a ridiculously overpowered weapon. In reality, a .308, .30-06, or any number of other mid-range caliber rifles would have been far more practical for shooting a moving target on a rooftop across a city street.
shareThis is the real problem. It's kind of puzzling why the script had them choosing .458 Win Mag for Harry's sniper rifle (or even why the department or even Harry owned it to begin with, it's literally like an African big game caliber.
It's kind of surprising Harry wasn't using an M-16, or at least an M-14 -- I wonder if there was a deliberate choice to avoid a military style rifle. Either to avoid Harry looking to much like a soldier/military, or to not ruin the rest of the "western" symbolism.
Perhaps a bolt action hunting rifle was the best compromise, a lever action rifle would be too obviously western and a modern assault rifle too jarringly modern.
"Apparently he likes a little edge."
shareWell he also carried a 44 mag that isn't as practical as a 38. The 458 winmag just played into that persona of Harry.
shareIt's true that .44 Mag is a dubious choice for a service weapon, but in the right hands might be usable, especially for an officer who wasn't in short-range quick draw situations.
Ironically, the city of San Francisco was one of the few municipalities who adopted the novel .41 Magnum caliber. I own a 1965 copy *and* a Model 29 .44 Mag like Harry carries, and they're really not much different in terms of handling or recoil. If I had to fire one blind, I doubt I could tell the difference between them.
.458 win mag is so far over the top as a rifle, worse than a .44 Mag/.38 special comparison. Literally a standard bolt action in .30-06 or .308 would have been more proportional and still overpowered.
My guess is in the time/place, it would have been more realistic for Harry to have been given a M1 Carbine for this situation, if not an M-14 or Springfield .30-06.
Open sights, in the dark, with a .458 Win Mag . . . it's plausible that he might miss. Not my first choice of weapon for that job, I think.
shareWhere the *beep* do you *beep* come from?
share