Classics Reborn
A trend that doesn’t seem to be ending soon is movies directly remade from earlier movies and television shows. One of my all time favorites, The A-Team, got remade as a big budget extravaganza starring Liam Taken Neeson as Hannibal Smith. Bradley The Hangover Cooper takes on the role of “Faceman” (played on the original series by Dirk Benedict) with a GLOCK 17 in his handsome hands. The movie made nearly $200 million around the world.
They also remade the Charles Bronson classic The Mechanic with Transporter star Jason Statham and 3:10 to Yuma’s Ben Foster. This tale of two of the most inept “zero footprint” assassins I’ve ever seen on film (every shot they try to make ends up in a huge gun battle) brought in only $50 million here and abroad, but was filled with lots of GLOCK action. Another remake that scored just as well was the reboot of George Night of the Living Dead Romero’s The Crazies. Sheriff Dutten, played by Justified’s Timothy Olyphant finds himself and his GLOCK 30 facing a town gone, well, crazy, after the release of a poison gas.
Fresh Flicks
Surprisingly, there were actually a few non-remakes that hit the multiplexes this year, and audiences seeking GLOCKs in fresh stories rewarded these films greatly.
In last year’s fantasy Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder, the guy who brought us the comic book adaptations of 300 and The Watchmen, took us to an ultra-violent world inside the head of Emily Brown and a few hot babes that are locked up in a mental institution. Since Zack is himself a gun guy, there were plenty of chain guns and, of course, GLOCKs in the $90 million grossing film.
Daredevil Ben Affleck wrote, directed and starred in the bank heist movie The Town. Affleck carried a GLOCK 17 9×19 and led the film to several Oscar nominations and a box office haul of over $150 million.
In the film Salt, Angelina Jolie is a Soviet-trained double-double agent on the run from the CIA and trying to stop a plan to nuke the Middle East with her GLOCK 19 at her side. Angelina’s butt-kicking action and her 9×19 sidekick helped Salt bring in just shy of $300 million in worldwide box office.
But it was definitely the most original idea of the year that made the biggest splash. The G17 is the gun of choice for Third Rock from the Sun star Joseph Gordon-Levitt in director Christopher Dark Knight Nolan’s smash hit Inception. The Leonardo DiCaprio-headlined reality bender was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and took viewers into an action-filled alternate dream world that grossed an amazing $825 million!
On a smaller scale, scare fests Saw IV and Hostel: Part III were two horror sequels from this year where GLOCKs were part of the blood-soaked thrills.
Even though the GLOCK is now used in every action film, scriptwriters and actors still have to learn the difference between the Austrian super gun and traditional pistols. A great example is in the movie Under Siege 2, where Steven Seagal’s character is telling another person how to use a GLOCK 19 9×19. “This is a GLOCK .45,” he says. “First thing you want to do is take it off safe.” He then makes a motion as if using a thumb safety on a 1911. Now, Steven is a huge 1911 fan, but man, this was off the scale!
I’m not a Scientologist, but I had a ball watching Tom Mission Impossible Cruise and Cameron The Green Hornet Diaz face down armies of full-auto- and GLOCK-toting assassins in the wacky romantic comedy Knight and Day. Audiences around the globe agreed and helped Knight and Day to a $260 million gross. In the $170 million-generating comedy hit The Other Guys, suspended cop Will Ferrell is given a wooden gun that is made to look like the GLOCK 19 carried by the other NYPD detectives in the movie.
The Small Screen
If you like your entertainment on the small screen, watch for GLOCKs in Frank The Green Mile Darabont’s zombie TV series based on the hit comic book The Walking Dead. The Atlanta deputies, including stars Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal, take on the flesh-hungry ghouls with their G17s and a multitude of long gun firepower.
As in years past, the GLOCK can be seen each week in the various CSI shows, the Law & Order series, and every cop show aired on TV. The GLOCK pistol also got lots of screen time as the heroine’s gun in the now-on-DVD TV show V. Firearm-loving fans of the History Channel’s hit Top Shot TV show these last two seasons have seen challenges using stock G17s and customized G34s to wring out just who was the “top shot.”
But for GLOCK goodness on the small screen, the hands-down winner is FX Networks’ hit show Justified. Timothy Olyphant’s ultra-violent U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is quick to use his GLOCK 21 .45 Auto – backed up by his G26 subcompact 9×19. The show and its on-air commercials, which feature Olyphant recreating famous movie scenes with his Austrian autopistol, have made Olyphant’s GLOCK a cult favorite.
In Hollywood, a 25-year-long career is unheard of – but for the GLOCK pistol, I think it’s just the beginning.
