QuickCheck: Was an action scene in a Robert De Niro movie used to train US Marines?

Source: The Star

PETALING JAYA: In order to make fighting or shooting scenes more realistic for the audience, movie directors would get professionals to train their actors in proper fighting techniques or how to handle a weapon.

What if it was the other way around? Could there be a shooting scene from a movie used for military training?

Yes, interestingly enough, one scene from Michael Mann's action movie Heat is so realistic, it has been by the United States Marines in weapons training.

In the movie, which stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Val Kilmer, a shootout between the police and robbers occurred after the film's bank robbery in the middle of Los Angeles.

In it, Kilmer's character Chris Shiherlis was shooting at the LAPD officers and reloading while escaping the authorities.

Kilmer was reported saying that the Marines had picked up on the sequence and started using it in training.

"I heard something really flattering. There's a shot where I run out of bullets, I change a mag, and I go back to firing.

"I think it's the Marines, they show the clip and say 'Tell those maggots if you can't change a clip as fast as this actor then get out of my army'. How cool is that?" he said in an interview.

To achieve a great shootout sequence in the movie, Mann had made great plans and had the actors undergo three months of intensive training, developed by ex-Special Air Service sergeant Andy McNab and ex-Special Forces instructor Mick Gould.

It is intriguing to discover that something meticulously planned for a movie would be used in real-life training. Life imitating art, right?

Sources:

www.esquire.com/uk/culture/film/a34802474/heat-25-anniversary/

screenrant.com/heat-shootout-scene-marine-weapons-training/