L.A. Confidential : How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

That's probably my biggest question about the movie.
It feels like a made-up happy ending.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Because it's Hollywood... I also felt that it was stretching things a bit, as was the entire shootout at the motel, where it began to look more like a Die Hard sequence - impressive to watch, but not entirely believable.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

People have survived gunshots to the face and that were close range, it happens but not all the time.

Y'know, I could eat a peach for hours

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Bud survives because he is one tough son of a bitch.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Go-Go-Eighties-Reaganaut got it right.

In the book, he's shot and stabbed. He's on the critical list, but he makes it. However Bud (in the book) ends up with a metal plate in his head, ripped arteries and shattered bones, survives shock, neurological trauma, and loses half the blood in his body. he can't talk (I don't know about permanently), his mouth is all wired up, and he's crippled (again, I don't know if it's permanent). Bottom line a lot of medical stuff had to be done to save Bud. So maybe the film should've elaborated on how badly Bud White gets injured. I don't know.

It is a miracle he lives, but I don't think it's a completely unbelievable thing. I'm sure there are real life stories of people who were injured worse but lived.


If you love Jesus, & are proud of it, copy this & make it your signature. I saw this & I did.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

I love Jesus and am proud of it but I don't need to copy the sig. I agree with you about White though. Surviving the 2 body shots might be unusual but by no means impossible. The face shot was the most plausible for him to survive in my opinion. In one cheek and out the other.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!


It is a miracle he lives, but I don't think it's a completely unbelievable thing. I'm sure there are real life stories of people who were injured worse but lived.


Seriously. Here's one I heard recently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/nyregion/03shot.html


As Mr. Vaughan pulled into his driveway one evening, he said, a man in a van pulled in behind him and hopped out with a rifle in his hand. Mr. Vaughan recognized the man as a former neighbor. As Mr. Vaughan dashed for the side of his house, he was struck in the side of his right leg and fell to the ground.

Kenny Vaughan was shot about 20 times outside his home in 1995. “I asked the Lord not to hit me in my heart and head,” said Mr. Vaughan, who said he never lost consciousness. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Then, from about five feet away, the man fired shot after shot as Mr. Vaughan crept on his side, trying in vain to crawl under his minivan, to somehow find a reprieve from the indescribable sting he felt with each bullet that tore into his body.

“You’re thinking clearer than you ever thought in your life,” Mr. Vaughan said during a recent interview. “I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline or just the will to live. You want to live more than anything in the world, and you know you have no control. I asked the Lord not to hit me in my heart and head.”

When the gunman stopped to reload, Mr. Vaughan said, he pulled himself to his feet and onto the hood of his minivan. But the man knocked him on his back with a shot to the abdomen, again from about five feet away, and continued shooting.

The final shot, Mr. Vaughan said, entered his groin area and exited through his rectum, leaving him lying in a pool of blood and feces. He never lost consciousness.

“I wouldn’t close my eyes,” he said. “I kept telling myself, ‘If you close your eyes, you’ll go into shock, and you’re dead.’ ”

Mr. Vaughan said that he had an out-of-body experience while he was being shot — he felt as though he was watching the shooting from 15 feet away — and that he had God to thank for his survival.

“It was a plan that was way bigger than I am,” Mr. Vaughan said. “And why he saw fit for me to live and other people not to live, I can’t begin to answer that question.”

Two doctors who operated on Mr. Vaughan said his survival was unlike anything they had ever seen. Bullets barely missed several vital organs. Two were less than an inch from his heart.

“How you can get that many bullets in the chest, the groin, the abdomen and extremities and not have a lethal injury is pretty remarkable,” said Dr. Phillip Shadduck, the general surgeon at Durham Regional Hospital who operated on Mr. Vaughan. “He was very fortunate.”

The gun used to shoot Mr. Vaughan was a .22-caliber rifle, a firearm that is much less lethal than, say, the 9-millimeter handguns that detectives in the Bell case used, Dr. DiMaio said.


There are other incredible stories like that. Back in 1986, for example, a group of FBI agents bungled an arrest of two bank robbers named William Matix and Michael Platt. They both died, but they had to be shot about ten to twenty times each before the deed was done. One was shot in the head and was only knocked out momentarily. They killed two FBI agents and wounded several more. There are plenty of stories out there that make Bud's look pretty tame!

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

If nothing vital gets hit the chance of survival is high especially as pistols are low velocity and there fore tend to not shatter bones.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

and you never asked why would bud be jealous when his lover is a prostitute, and she's supposed to be very attractive, this movie has holes like a swiss cheese, your question is the least of them.

i mostly will not be able to answer your reply, since marissa mayer hacked my email, no notification

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Bud would not usually be jealous (he knows what she does), but he hates Exley. Alot. Notice he barely bats an eye when she's with the John (the Councilman).

You just have to be resigned-
You're crashing by design

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Yeah I thought that was pretty obvious. She even makes it clear that Bud has told her how much he hates Exley, so it's the ultimate slap in the face.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Missed major organs I guess. The shot to the head went through his mouth, in one cheek and out the other; probably blew out most of his teeth. He'll be wearing dentures for sure.

That or he was just too tough to die.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

People can survive gunshot wounds.Reagan was shot at point blank range and made it.If I remember correctly,Bud was shot on the left shoulder,the right chest and after stabbing Smith was shot through the jaw.He is shown afterwards to be in very bad shape and it is implied that he was medically discharged from the LAPD

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

I'm at the range quite often and I see guys standing still, taking their time and not stressed missing big targets so I could see it.

The validity of my answers is highly dependent on the intelligence of the question..or lack thereof.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!


How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!


The same way Vito Genovese survived twice as many bullets from even closer range, it's in the script.

Actually, it's a truth is stranger than fiction moment. There are many examples of people surviving what would seem to be worse. Also, the shooters were likely using the preferred police round for the time, the .38 special, which is not particularly effective. That's why virtually no one uses it for anything now.

Now had Bud been hit by one of the shotguns or even a Thompson firing the .45 ACP, it might have been a different story.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

It was actually a .32, commonly used during that time (especially by an older cop like Dudley). The .32 cartridge is roughly 1/3 the size of a .38 special.

It's a very weak round. .32 is Number 11 on this page:

http://herohog.com/images/guns/ammo/Comparitive_handgun_rounds.jpg

and .38 special is Number 7 for comparison.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

It's unlikely but possible as long as none of his vitals were hit.

As someone else mentioned, had he been hit with a shotgun blast it'd be a lot less believable.


See you in hell, candy boys!

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

He survived because it was in the script

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

The man was just too angry to die. They could have cut him up with a chainsaw and his fists would still have been flying around punching people.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!


How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!


Because Bud White is a bad mother *beep* Think of him as a force of nature.

More realistically people have been shot more than 3 times and lived. 50 Cent survived a shooting similar to this, actually twice as many bullets with a similar shot to the face. Two revolver shots to the torso missing certain vitals can be survived, not that uncommon. The last shot to his face went through one cheek and out the other, lost teeth but survivable. It's not a great stretch White survived.

Also the guy looked physically dense. Muscle does in fact slow projectiles down compared to fat or very little mass. I doubt Exley would have survived that same situation. The best part of that scene; as White is getting blasted by Dudley he still tries to advance on him. Unstoppable.

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

Seach about Jacky Imbert. This man survived twenty two projectiles in his body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacky_Imbert

Re: How could Bud survive three close-range shots?!

You'd be surprised the punishment a human body can endure. Those were .38 Special slugs. A .38 Special is not a very powerful weapon.
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