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

[A.C.A.B.]

In the sequel to The Boondock Saints, theres a part where the mexican guy, and the long haired guy, are breaking into a warehouse or something, and the long haired guy, takes a tennis ball, and slaps it up against a lock, and the large bay door to the wear house opens.
i think i walked out of the movie at that point, as i didnt care for it. it was shit for a movie.

[Solomon]

In the sequel to The Boondock Saints, theres a part where the mexican guy, and the long haired guy, are breaking into a warehouse or something, and the long haired guy, takes a tennis ball, and slaps it up against a lock, and the large bay door to the wear house opens.
i think i walked out of the movie at that point, as i didnt care for it. it was road apples for a movie.

It's a comedy, it's not supposed to be serious. The first one was definitely better though, it was just funny without trying to be.

[Josh66]

Maybe that's where they got the tennis ball thing in The Next Three Days from.

[jgor]

So I went to see the new Robot & Frank movie without knowing much of anything about it...turns out it's full of lockpicking!

Without giving anything imporant away, Frank is an ex-burglar who teaches a robot to pick locks... For the most part they use the correct tools (tension wrench at the bottom, some kind of pick working on the pins), but they wiggle both tools for a bit until the lock opens, never correct tension. Towards the beginning of the movie Frank goes at a lever lock with a long hook pick...ignoring the fact that he wasn't tensioning anything on it, that just might be a plausible attack. There's even some safe brute-forcing via a robo-dialer.

Oh, and I distinctly saw the same Peterson tri-fold case that I use holding his pick collection

[ice_man]

in think that the best one are when they use 2 picks an no tension haha

[atticRR]

in call of duty/ black ops II, level 2 you use a lockaid gun and a tension wrench to open a shed to retrieve some bear traps. it looked pretty decent, if i say so myself.

[Jedilocksmith]

in call of duty/ black ops II, level 2 you use a lockaid gun and a tension wrench to open a shed to retrieve some bear traps. it looked pretty decent, if i say so myself.

I was just going to post something about that...you beat me to it. I think he actually pulled out the pickgun a couple times in the game. Good times.

[atticRR]

Oh, he may have. I haven't finished the campaign, just rolling in multiplayer- nuketown 2025 all the way!

[Jedilocksmith]

Oh, he may have. I haven't finished the campaign, just rolling in multiplayer- nuketown 2025 all the way!

The campaign was cool because it had everything Im into, guns, lockpicking, and skydiving. But that was just a bonus. Im in it for the zombies...love shootin' me some zombies.

[catsoup]

I know it's been mentioned before, but CBS's take on sherlock holmes, Elementary has some semi-accurate lock picking.

The most recent episode, 7, shows Sherlock picking open a door with masterful speed.

[sandplum]

I know it's been mentioned before, but CBS's take on sherlock holmes, Elementary has some semi-accurate lock picking.

The most recent episode, 7, shows Sherlock picking open a door with masterful speed.

The actor who plays Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) is an experienced lock picker. And there is a consultant on the show. So he knows how to make it look good!

[Squelchtone]

I know it's been mentioned before, but CBS's take on sherlock holmes, Elementary has some semi-accurate lock picking.

The most recent episode, 7, shows Sherlock picking open a door with masterful speed.

The actor who plays Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) is an experienced lock picker. And there is a consultant on the show. So he knows how to make it look good!

That's the best thing I've heard in a while. It would be great if they let him pick a lock for real and it wasn't gimmicked at all, like a 5 pin Kwikset or something easy. Even better if they had a pin hole camera looking at the side of the lock, so they could show the pins moving up and down (if it was a cutaway lock of course)

Thanks!
Squelchtone

[Phantom1016]

x2 squelchtone, that'd be fun to watch, and I think the average viewer with no knowledge of picking would enjoy to see it working in real time.

I know in Robert Ludlum novels (The guy who wrote the Bourne series), it sometimes mentions VERY basic picking and raking. Often it's just talking about raking, but it tells how hard it is while you're stressed and hurried, and how much luck is involved when raking. I love it because he shows 1) that lock picking isn't magic, it's a ability that must be learned 2) it's not consistent, sometimes the same lock can be harder than usual and 3) that he knows some, but not enough. I hate it when these Bond characters know everything about everything, I like characters to be limited in some areas, and his honesty about lock picking is refreshing and fun, especially when his character can't pick a lock that he normally would be able to, and it really messes up his plan (The Ambler Warning).

[i_b_larry]

My main question is if the movie producers feel a personal responsibility not to show things, or if the RIAA has rules against showing certain things and how they are done. Anyone have contacts in Hollywood who can ask around?

Movies are not documentaries about lockpicking so there is no reason for Hollywood to depict the subject truthfully. Movies are basically all about action. That is, create a problem for the hero, make him solve that problem, and then move on to the next problem.

The locked door is a problem and the hero solves the problem with a fictional lockpick solution. How many of these lockpicking sequences in the movies last more than a few seconds? In real life, how long does it actually take? The audience wants action, not a 20-minute real-life depiction of lockpicking. Even 30 seconds of real-life lock picking would seem like an eternity to the viewer. The movies resort to fictional lockpicking methods because it can be done quickly without loosing the audience's attention. (Even those videos on You-Tube showing some kid picking Best cores to the control line get pretty boring even for those of us interested in the subject.)

While the motion picture industry may have some concerns about not providing how-to information to terrorists, burglars, and other criminals, the fictional lockpickings in movies have a lot more to do with keeping up the pace of the action and less about real life security threats.

[jos weyers]

there is a consultant on the show

As "key second assistant" is probably not key-related, the consultant-role isn't listed on IMDB.

Anybody we know?

AND I think it's time he starts to file a key (and I know just the consultant for that job)