Guns have a long history in film, and it turned out to be really, really hard to pick just five awesome shooters. But here's the list I came up with. Five of my favorites.
5. Coffy’s Shotgun (Coffy): She will end your rotten, dope pushing life with this portable cannon. Do not mess with her. Just don’t do it.
4. The ZF-1 (The Fifth Element): It slices. It dices. And it does a whole bunch of other completely ridiculous stuff.
3. Sandman Pistol (Logan's Run): Run, Runner!
2. Quigley’s Sharps Buffalo Rifle (Quigley Down Under): He might just be a speck on the horizon, but he’s still in a lot of trouble if you’ve got this beast at your shoulder.
1. The Samaritan (Hellboy): He may not be a very good shot, but it’s OK. The Samaritan shoots really big bullets.
Look, guns are bad. Scary. But in the right cinematic hero's hands, they are awesome!!!! These are my favorites.
5. El Mariachi's Rossi Overland Sawed Off Shotgun (Desperado): Is he man or myth? I don't know, but if El Mariachi walks into your bar and asks for Bucho you better point him in the right direction or he's gonna blast you up into the antlers with his beastly Sawed-Off.
4. Blain's Ol' Painless (Predator): If it weren't for the one ugly mutha from space, the jungles of Val Verde would have been a walk in the park with Ol' Painless cutting a swath of gore through that village of guerrilla kidnapping scum. A monstrous blur of bullets whirling and spitting death from all directions. Blain don't got time to bleed cuz he's too busy killin' your slow ass. However, there is that spaceman in the trees. Too bad.
3. Reggie's Quadruple-Barreled Shotgun (Phantasm II): Reggie was fun in the original Phantasm, but it wasn't till Part 2 that we realized that Reggie was the most badass ice cream man on the planet. And that's mostly thanks to that hefty Quadruple-Barreled Shotgun he's shopclassed together to take on that terrifying undead Martian, The Tall Man.
2. The Gristle Gun (eXistenZ): Definitely the most disgusting/revolting/gag-inducing weapon on the list, The Gristle Gun is a mixture of animal parts that fires teeth as its bullets. Gross. Thank you, Cronenberg. And this weapon is the embodiment of our demented director's obsession with Human/Machine bonding. And it will kill you...with teeth.
1. Harry Callahan's .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson (Dirty Harry): There is no gun cooler, or more badass than Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum. "Do You Feel Lucky?" No F'ing way with that big beast staring down at you! Just be grateful it's on our side.
Over on his blog, Edgar Wright just posted this Epic cinematic firearm mashup that he did in 1993 when he was just 19 years old. Lots of great stuff. Favorite bits are Kurtwood Smith's "Guns Guns Guns" quote and the Assault on Precinct 13 shotgunning.
