Top 5... Shootouts

This week saw me slaughtering dozens of friends, their partners and people I don't really know in a fairly epic game of Laser Quest, so to celebrate lets take aim at the greatest shootouts in movie history, get your human shields at the ready.



5. Grosse Point Blank
Two to choose from, but I'm opting for the demolition of the ever-so-90s mini supermarket, as John Cusack's ice cool hitman fends off a soemwhat less sedate rival, whilst the clueless clerk never lifts his eyes from the arcade machine he's playing Doom on in the corner ("I'm hurt, I'm pissed, and I gotta find a new job.")

4. Open Range
This long, protracted confrontation is between two cowboys, Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall, and a band of land-stealing hoods led by Michael Gambon's heartless swine in this little seen and widely underestimated western. The best bit? Duvall's injured old timer spying a sneaking baddie through the board of the hut he's hiding in, and blowing him away through the wall.

3. The Wild Bunch
Another western (this list was hardly going to be short on them, was it?), as the bunch, led by William Holden's Pike Bishop, take on the Mexican camp holding one of their own, making good use of the Browning M1917 machine gun conveniently placed in the compound.

2. The Matrix

Neo and Trinity take out an entire lobby's worth of grunts (and plenty of pillars that weren't hurting anyone)without even uttering a word, with Keanu making even cartwheeling look cool as the shell casings tinkle upon the ground..

1. Heat
The crime thriller to end all crime thriller features one hell of shootout in the aftermath of a bank robbery, when Al Pacino's detective Hanna and his team interrupt Robert DeNiro's Neil McCauley's crew's escape plans. Casualties are met on both sides, and once the cars have all been turned to swiss cheese, a desperate, heart-pounding foot chase takes place as the thieves look for any menas of getting away. One of the most tense, gripping and realistic shootouts, that maybe could have done with some more reloading of those deafening bullets.

Honourable mentions:

Inglourious Basterds' bar room brawl
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's last stand
True Romance's hotel room shootathon
L.A. Confidential's two men vs. the police showdown
Shoot 'em Up - the whole damn film
Hot Fuzz's village of the year massacre

And the worst:
3000 Miles to Graceland
Clumsily edited, confusing and nonsensical, Kevin Costner's Elvis-impersonating robber seems to develop powers of teleportation and bulletproof skin as, though he's surrounded by armed police, he barely gets scratched throughout most of this warehouse-set finale.