Lockpicking in Motion Pictures? ( Picking in Movies & Film )

[Engineer]

I think they are just scared of being accused of teaching people how to break into someone's property. So to get round that, they show either something so basic that it won't work (like just a pick), or a machine that is very futuristic.

I've mentioned before that the most realistic I've seen was in American programmes like "The Reprosessors". Some of the things they show are virtually tutorials on car opening. The second most realistic was the BBC TV series "The Invisibles". Lots of picking in that, one episode was actually about recovering a leaf pick they lost during a robbery.

[Squelchtone]

I think they are just scared of being accused of teaching people how to break into someone's property. So to get round that, they show either something so basic that it won't work (like just a pick), or a machine that is very futuristic.

The trouble with the general public and even with the police is that they think simply buying a lockpick set makes you an instant expert capable of just inserting a pick and the door lock opens. Lock picks are not master keys. They still require skill and there is a learning curve, so I think the people who make tv shows and movies should just show a pick and wrench being used properly. If someone buys a set online and sticks them into a lock, I doubt they're going to open anything; not without some practice, style, finesse, and patience.

I wish there was a way to trickle this detail to the public.

Squelchtone

[Engineer]

I agree completely Squelchtone.

I tell very few people that I pick locks after some quite extreme (bad) reactions from (previously) pretty good friends. If I say anything now, I usually simply say I'm a locksmith and let them continue thinking being a locksmith is just cutting keys and selling locks.

I really don't understand peoples' reaction to picking locks, but then after a lifetime of getting used to the idea that I seem different to most people, I just put it down to me being different.

[Squelchtone]

I agree completely Squelchtone.

I tell very few people that I pick locks after some quite extreme (bad) reactions from (previously) pretty good friends. If I say anything now, I usually simply say I'm a locksmith and let them continue thinking being a locksmith is just cutting keys and selling locks.

I really don't understand peoples' reaction to picking locks, but then after a lifetime of getting used to the idea that I seem different to most people, I just put it down to me being different.

I think it goes to show that people like you and I are more open minded than the majority of society. I think it's always been this way with fringe groups. From biker clubs to hackers, from lockpickers to the DIY crowd like the people from Make: magazine, its obvious we all like to tinker, to take things apart, learn from them, modify them. The commonality is that all of these groups think outside the box, and I will never consider that a bad thing.

Squelchtone

[locfoc]

Just for the record most people that rob don't take the time to pick locks. They use a crowbar, a brick through a window, I've even seen one thief use an exacto knife to cut the silicone around the window and lift the large piece of glass out of a door and place it neatly on the floor, then rob the place. So the question is are you teaching people how to steal here? no absolutely not, you aren't telling them how to by pass alarm systems, how to get away from the scene of the crime. This is just a hobby lockpicking site. Just because somebody can pick locks doesn't mean they would be a good thief. Even most locksmiths make horrible thieves because they view things way to technically. And in the world of crime being too technical is bad, you need a bit of street grit and roughness to commit crime.

I support the idea of hobby lockpicking because I was a hobby picker before I became a locksmith. If I didn't pick up the hobby I would never have become a locksmith, so I know what it's like to think like a hobby picker, I knew what I wanted out of it. If somebody wants to become a thief this is the wrong place. I'm not saying you wouldn't be able to open grandma marry's apt door open when she leaves for the grocery store (which btw would make you a horrible person) but you would never have the skills to pull off a real heist with what you learn here. I've repaired buildings, doors, locks that have had real heists. I've seen entire warehouses empty, alarms bypassed you name it. I know how they do it because I have to fix and prevent it from happening again. And they don't teach half the shit you need to know to do any of that here. The only thing you learn here is how to open the first door, without the rest of the knowledge you land in jail. so enjoy the free rape, I hope it teaches the criminals a lesson.

LocFoc

[raimundo]

Read Buckminster fullers books, he'll tell you that experts know all the reasons why a thing won't work, and they don't try, traditionalists will only do it the way thier grandfather did, its outsider and outlaw thinking that got airplanes off the ground. Thats now called 'thinking outside the box, and suits try to do it but they are no good at it, under pressure to become creative, they invent credit default swaps to circumvent regulation and bring down the global economy. If you aren't a real outsider who sees the problem clearly and still makes something work, your just another Madoff conning people. There is no longer a need for wall street, no longer a need for a dense hive of hustlers conning other hustlers on the publics dime and losing all grasp of reality. Financial companies can disperse so the reality can leak back in. There is no reason to 'fix' a broken system, it needs to be replaced with a totally different model. Different people, different incentives, different location, totally different business model.
Razzledazzle artists like Jim Cramer lying about bearsterns while its hollowed out house of cards was coming to an end, well just watch the cramer/stewart youtube video. One mans honest, the hyperventallating hustler says theres a market for his conning people while the whole thing was already hollow, but as Jon Stewart pointed out theres a market for cocaine and hookers too.

[locfoc]

watch thick as thieves they have a magnet drill rig and they scope out the wheels.

[Major Boothroyd]

The Unit Season 4 Episode 16, lock picking while holding your breath so you don't inhale chlorine gas. Proper picking but the tension wrench was bearly put in before the door opened, decent show anyway.

[cryptocat]

WRT the magical 1-tool attack (use a real key): I've got a set of practice cores... you can actually pick some of them just by shoving the half-diamond in upside down. I discovered this one afternoon when I was probing to see how many pins I had to pick and the lock opened. Repeatably.

I'd hope no one would ever sell a lock set up that way, but it's conceivable that the propmasters might set up a lock to be trivially pickable so it looks real enough but the scene won't have to be re-shot too many times.

SsBloodY: I'm not about to mess up my diamond tool to try, but shimming out handcuffs in under 5 seconds is easy enough. Heck, we could probably teach a dead cat to shim handcuffs that fast...

Now, on to the movie goofs.

• The Italian Job: when the're manipulating the safe underwater, the last digit of combination is "0". Not sure what lock they're pretending to use, but my LG3330, S&G6730 and KM673 manuals all say to not use 0-20 for the last number. Also, most of the characters are dressed quite warmly, I'd guess it's late winter or early spring. Wouldn't the water be kind of cold and make you lose dexterity?
  
• The Italian Job: as so many others have pointed out, "you dropped the safe 20ft, and you're still worried about the glass relocker?"
  
• The Italian Job: Stella cracks the safe in 4m17. That's fast... no anti-drilling features in the safe? I love how they have her drilling what appears to be an existing hole. Maybe that was there from the two other guys they brought in to crack the safe. I know, the point of the scene is to establish her as a top-tier safecracker, but the more I think about it the less believable it is.
  
• The Score - De Niro managed to drill that safe pretty fast. The fact that they keep the background music running continuously suggests that this is happening in real time. The should've cut to a different track if they wanted to suggest more time.
  
• The Score: Now that I have a bit of an idea what I'm looking at, the lock manipulation is so badly staged. the inside of the lock seems to be lit from the lower left and has none of the reflections you'd get if you were pouring tons of light down a borescope. When the camera pulls back, De Niro is making little hand-dial movements (like 1/8 - 1/12 of a turn) but the wheels in the lock are moving smoothly. Also, when he's working wheel #2, he appears to be turning the knob clockwise, but the wheel is turning counterclockwise.
  
• The Score: how has Edward Norton's character never heard of relockers? Hasn't he seen the Italian Job?
  
• Kill Bill vol. 2: I'm going to classify punching through the coffin while buried as a "lock bypass". And Bill apparently left his suite door open.
  
• The Sentinel: slowing it down to 4fps, it looks like Michael Douglas does have some sort of tool in each hand, so it's not the M1TA. Can't tell if they're picks, wrenches or what. Maybe I'll rent the blu-ray someday and check.
  
• Broken Arrow: it's not quite safecracking, but having the trigger for the bombs shut down after 3 bad codes looks like a standard feature on modern electronic combination locks.
  
• Inside Man: looks like she's using snake pick (C rake) on the safety deposit box. Can't tell what she's using for a wrench, but she ain't wrenching on it. It's just laying flat in the lock. And yes, they do just pull the plug out of the lock when responding to the warrant.
  
• Mr & Mrs Smith: Totally inelegant forced entry into the housewares store. Not sure what kind of lock they ripped off the door, but it's poorly mounted. Go propmasters!
  
• Oceans 11: Basher blows the bank safe. Not sure what he's trying for but all the approaches I can think of don't seem plausible, mostly because there's not enough damage. I'd would've at least painted in some more scorch marks. Maybe he's trying to bump the vault door open with explosives?

[Engineer]

Good frst post Cryptocat - Have you seen the Mythbuster episode though where they drill a hole in the safe, fill it with water and can then blow it pretty easily? Good physics, but pretty messy - Who's up for ironing the banknotes then???

[cryptocat]

Good frst post Cryptocat - Have you seen the Mythbuster episode though where they drill a hole in the safe, fill it with water and can then blow it pretty easily? Good physics, but pretty messy - Who's up for ironing the banknotes then???

Yes, I saw that. I didn't think it was necessary to burst that bubble though. I can suspend disbelief for good pyrotechnics.

There's also an episode where Adam drills a safe - it's on youtube as "Meilink Vs. Myth Busters"

Also from the mythbusters-massive-overkill department, the "removing hardened concrete from the cement truck with dynamite" episode also contains handy safecracking and relocker bypass tips. Step 1: call your local bomb squad and ask if they will help you blow something up.

[freakparade3]

In the new movie "In The Electric Mist" Tommy Lee Jones uses an HPC rake to pick a lock. No tension tool. He inserts the pick, twists it left and right and the lock opens...........

[Engineer]

Cryptocat - Wouldn't you like to see if they could open a safe with that truck-mounted chain gun they use occsionally - Such as when they cut down trees with it?

I'd best be careful or I might get the thread locked, this is hardly non-destructive entry after all! Somehow I don't think it will be a problem though, since these methods would tend to attract a lot of attention!

[archimedes313]

This is my first real post, and I picked this mainly because my friends always rib me because I'll point out scenes where they either do something right or wrong opening locks in movies and TV shows, I give a program an extra star if I see them at least use a tension wrench... I've always been a big fan of crime movies! The Real McCoy with Kim Bassinger is an excellent movie. Someone made disparaging remarks about The Saint, but I'm sure that his knife was an influence on the Jacknife... The movie The Heist with Gene Hackman has him opening locks that aren't really approved of here, but it's a really good movie none the less... My girl was just watching Desperate Housewives and I saw the episode where the guy uses pick and wrench to open the lock, and of course I've also seen episodes of Burn Notice... I really watch far too much TV I have more movies and shows that I have seen and liked, but can't remember them at the moment...

[apb]

Last night on an episode of Law and Order SVU. It didn't show the lockpicking, but a decent pickset was found on a suspect in multiple murders and implicated him in how the killer was getting into apartments with out forced entry. It turn out he was just a peeping tom who would go in and "watch". So long story short, our community takes a hit as the unknowing public can associate lockpicks with creepy, peeping tomfoolry.