Taking aim at guns and cars and classic tv shows.
Fast cars and guns might sound like the classic James Bond mix used repeatedly in everything from Mission Impossible to the Fast and Furious films but guys like guns, girls and cars and including Aston Martins, Ferraris and Lamborghinis in your film or tv series is not a bad idea.
Taking a picture of the new CBS reboot, Magnum, I saw red. The ex-fashion model Jay Hernandez is at the wheel of a Ferrari while pointing a handgun out the window.
Despite never serving in a police or military role, I am guessing firing guns from cars is never a good look. In fact it seems more like a drug dealing gangster look. Accuracy diminishes rapidly while either the shooter or target is moving so doing it from a Ferrari doesn't paint a very realistic picture of our PI.
Drive-by shootings are never a good look and I remember once driving by the scene of a drive-by shooting in my own little red Italian sports car. I was passing through Clondalkin in Dublin and I saw a whole housing estate sealed off with police tape and CSI markings on the ground from what I presume was a drive-by/ car chase with a machine gun.
They say we should never judge a book by its cover so I knew I would have to check out the Magnum remake and see how unrealistic and bad the series was. Especially as I liked the original series.
I really liked Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum as a child but to be honest all I remember of the series was a private investigator with a red Ferrari, in Hawaii and TC's helicopter.
Sexy and sleek, the new series opens with a parachute jump from space like Feliz Baumgarder did in 2012 and our hero played by the Hostel star, Jay Hernandez HALO jumps into North Korea. He quickly defeats the North Korean army before his buddies rescue him in a Huey helicopter. The scene closes with his friends laughing at the unrealistic opening of a Robin Masterson book. They seem to remember the mission a little differently but it is the author's books that pay for the lavish lifestyle that houses Thomas Magnum in Masterson's guesthouse with a few prancing horses in the estates' stables.
Damaging a modern Ferrari in the second scene, Magnum borrows a classic Ferrari from the stable with the numberplate Robin 1 and we get to see the original 308GTS Quattrovalvole Ferrari used in Tom Selleck's series which ran 162 episodes from 1980 to 1988.
I say original car but apparently they auctioned off the Ferraris at the end of each season and several were used in the original eight seasons. The car is of course iconic from Magnum but the 308 is not the only Ferrari favoured by law enforcement as Miami Vice's started with a black 365GTS Daytona before switching to the iconic white Ferrari Testarossa. Will Smith took to Miami in a Porsche 911 Turbo in Bad Boys before changing to a Ferrari F550 Maranello for Bad Boys II.
Unbelievably, the black Daytona used in Miami Vice was actually a replica and used a Corvette's chassis as Ferrari didn't supply Magnum or Miami with cars and the original Magnum production had to buy 308s where as Miami Vice, living up to their name, chop shopped and made their own Ferraris.
Colin Farrell appeared in a film version of Miami Vice in a F360 Ferrari which seemed a very basic model for the remake of the Don Johnson series considering Johnson drove V12 models and not V8s. Maybe Ferrari thought they could sell some 360s. I don't know.
Sorry Colin, I didn't appreciate your V8 but let's team up for Clondalkin Vice where people clearly do fire guns from moving cars.
MY PITCH: MfAGGnum P.I. at the scene of a Clondalkin crime with a Ferrari F360.
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