Movie gunfighting

Gregg Easterbrook has an issue with the latest installment in the 007 movie series:

We've now endured two movies of the rebooted, supposedly "realistic" James Bond franchise, and at this point I'd like to go back to supervillains controlling outer space death rays. Supposedly, "Quantum of Solace" is "realistic." This film has four scenes in which multiple foes fire machine guns at Bond at close range for extended sequences, and every one of hundreds of bullets misses. Bond in response kills many bad guys with super-accurate long-range single shots from his small-caliber pistol, always while running — he isn't even bracing the gun with two hands. Though conveniently Bond's pistol is one of those movie guns that never has to be reloaded no matter how often it's fired. Dozens of guys with automatic weapons missing at close range is realism? CIA agents trying to kill an MI6 agent by chasing him in a public place while firing machine guns is realism? An ultra-luxury hotel in the middle of the Atacama Desert is realism?

In the movie's most absurd scene — and by saying this I don't mean to take anything away from the other absurd scenes — Bond is put into an elevator with two MI6 agents assigned to prevent his escape; in seconds, Bond knocks both unconscious on his first punch, and escapes. Prizefighters elaborately train to try to knock people unconscious with one punch, and almost never achieve this: Bond throws two punches and knocks two guys unconscious. (Of course in "Mission Impossible III," Tom Cruise was in an elevator with three guys and knocked all three unconscious with his first punch.) If Bond movies bear no relation to reality, I'd rather see gadgets and girls than absurd fight scenes. Meanwhile, this is the third consecutive Bond plot — spoiler alert — that turns on a high-ranking traitor in MI6; "Quantum" also throws in a high-ranking CIA traitor. There is no cheaper spy-movie plot device than having high-ranking people suddenly revealed as traitors, forcing the super-spy to fight his own agency: all three "Impossible" movies turned on this cliché, too.