MovieChat Forums > Insomnia (2002) Discussion > Why did Pacino switch guns? *SPOILER*

Why did Pacino switch guns? *SPOILER*


Before he shot his partner...was it intentional so he could kill him without getting caught?

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If you watch carefully, he ran out of bullets and pulled out his backup gun. And I don't think the killing was intentional at all.



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Not Intentional is my verdict. all Pacino saw was a dark figure

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Oh OK, I didn't catch that he ran out of bullets. I was kind of half-watching that part, thanks. It didn't make sense to me that he would kill his partner on purpose just for the work stuff they were bickering about.

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He didn't run out of bullets because he never fired any bullets.

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Lol no. His primary jammed so he had to switch to his back-up.

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Yeah it was pretty clear that only 2 shots were fired in the fog

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Thank you. I read the op and thought, "Huh? Do cops really only carry 1 clip around with them?"

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It could have been shown better. His primary fails to fire for whatever reason. Maybe he racked that round in the chamber too many times and the primer was dimpled and rendered ineffective. That has happened. So it is not entirely implausible.

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Agree strongly. Now that I've seen the discussions, I'm kinda mad that it was shown so poorly. I watched the sequence several times and it is NOT obvious, even in a theater viewing, that there was a malfunction. I thought through the whole movie that Will had just quickly chosen to switch guns, instinctlively, subconsciously, whatever, and that he had an inner motivation to kill his partner.

When he explained in the end that maybe he did it on purpose without realizing it, that sorta fit. But the switching of the gun by necessity makes much more sense. So at least the shooting of Hap wasn't premeditated.

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For me it was crystal clear the first time through:
- he pulls the trigger,
- you hear empty "click", suggesting that he either did not have a bullet in chamber, or weapon malfunctioned,
- you see him throw primary weapon, reaching for the secondary, then firing secondary.

Changing weapon is much faster than trying to reload/clear/unblock the primary, especially when you don't know reason it did not fire and you need to shoot fast. I suppose this is a standard police procedure, and just a reflex for the person who uses gun.

Just to add a counterpoint to the discussion.

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On our DVD, played frame-by-frame and again with isolated soundtracks, there is no sound of a click. There isn't enough time to show Pacino demonstrating, hearing, or seeing a problem and reacting. He draws one weapon, then another, in a joined cutaway image. There may be an edit or compression on some/all of the DVD's, but the full sequence of the (skilled) decision is not clearly shown. Such a fast reflex action would be hard to edit, but a movement on the trigger and a click which would have helped. Maybe it's there on the film, or maybe this was ambiguous by design.

This would explain why viewers have questioned this scene and plot point continually over ten years in many forums. Theatre viewers have also questioned it. Indeed it may be such a fast sequence that the viewer is called upon to be an eyewitness who must fill in the details.

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Watched it on Netflix and I definitely thought I heard a click... I got the impression the gun wasn't working so he switched weapons.

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It was obvious for me from the first viewing. The scene goes as follows: he pulls his primary, pulls the trigger, we can hear a quite loud click (even two) but nothing happens, then he looks at his gun and only then switches to secondary. The clicking sound is very distinct and audible and it's not something you could miss if you were paying attention to the movie and not (for example) talking to your girlfriend or something. Maybe there are different cuts? That would explain the confusion. I have the blue ray version going for a little over 1h58 minutes.

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Wow, I've seen this movie 4 times and always thought that he shot his partner intentionally because eh drew his backup. But then I went back and watched it after reading this post and realized he did have a malfunction on his primary. It is not very clear unless you're looking for it.

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I recently rewatched this scene, and there are two distinct click sounds from his primary weapon, indicating it malfunctioned, not that he was out of bullets; Dormer had not even fired a single shot yet.

Just prior to the chase, Officer Farrell is discussing weapons with Hap, saying his own is "all classic except for the barrel and firing pin; never rusts." This suggests the environment they [Alaskan PD] work in is harsher on weapons, which provides an explanation for the malfunction of Dormer's primary weapon.

And as someone else pointed out, it was much faster to switch to his backup, which had been protected from the elements at that time, than to try to correct the jam/malfunction.

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I watched the movie for the first time lastnight. This was something that struck me as being odd. I re-watched the scene several times, I got the impression that it was left ambigous on purpose. One of the aspects I enjoyed about the overall style of the movie.

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