SilencerCo, USMC M27: First time on the Big Screen! -The Firearm Blog

Firearms product placement within Hollywood movies always provides a fascinating look into how firearms are portrayed on the big screen. In this case, we have two firsts when it comes to product placement, that of the H&K M27 IAR, and the Radius from SilencerCo.

Man Down is a recent movie coming out portraying the struggle a young Marine goes through while serving. One of the main actors is armed with the M27 IAR. It is correctly pictured with the Trijicon SDO (with RMR atop), AN/PEQ15, Vickers Tactical 2 point sling, Harris bipods, and Knight’s Armament BUISs. Different battalions outfitted their M27 gunner with either AN/PEQ15s or 16s, depending on what the Battalion Gunner deemed necessary. Unfortunately, the movie got the location wrong because the M27 didn’t enter operational service until December 2011 when 1/3 was the first infantry battalion to deploy with the rifle to Garmsir District in Helmand Province.

The movie description mentions Afghanistan, but the actual setting within the movie is much more akin to Iraq with the massive built up, concrete urban areas, completely unlike the rural terrain and mud hut villages that Marines found themselves in through operating in Helmand Province. There were urban areas in Afghanistan that Marines were deployed to (most notably in the early stages of the war), however Marines would not have been wearing FROG suits and be armed with M4s, AN/PEQ15s, or M27s. So either way, the location and equipment just doesn’t match up. By the time we got the M27, the Iraq deployments had really come to a close, in the 2008 and 2009 time frame.

xXx: The Return of Xander Cage will be coming to theaters next year, and has a number of firearms portrayed within the movie, but of interest is SilencerCo’s Radius laser range finder.