A plan is just a list of things that don't happen

There are a lot of good movies filmed in Utah, if you check a list at IMDB, it is just endless. Most of them are either filmed in or surrounding one of the national parks or the salt flats. Those two are the most popular spots, but once you start looking at movies NOT filmed in those locations, the list of actually good films seems to be drastically reduced. In fact, I can really only think of four decent movies filmed in Utah that were shot outside of those areas: The Sandlot, Harry's War, Dumb and Dumber, and The Way of the Gun.

All of those movies I would highly recommend as good movies, but this time around I'm talking about The Way of the Gun.  If you haven't seen it, it's got a great cast, and some of the best gunfight scenes in any movie, rivaled only to me by the ones in Heat or maybe Proof of Life. The film is a crime movie that is heavy on the plotting, betrayals and reveals, but the best part of the movie are by far the action scenes. It's far from perfect, with plenty of issues throughout, but it also far from being a bad movie at all, and is certainly worth a watch if you like either genre of action or crime films. 

A still from the chase scene in downtown SLC.

However, I won't talk too much about the movie itself, but rather the production of the film and filming locations. The movie came about by Benicio del Toro encouraging the director/writer Christopher McQuarrie (who wrote The Usual Suspects) to make another crime film. One of McQuarrie's goals was to make a film with very traditionally unsympathetic antagonists to be the main characters of the movie, and actually make you root for them, which I think it really succeeds at. It has some especially strong dialogue with some very quotable lines between the characters Parker and Longbaugh (named after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). It's ending credits theme is also one of the best songs put to a movie period. 

Almost the entirety of the movie was shot in and around the locations of Salt Lake City and Skull Valley, Utah and it is very noticeable in the film if you have lived around those areas. Downtown SLC being particularly prominent at the beginning of the movie. 

 The Dell, Utah motel used as a stand in for a Mexican motel in the movie. Pic taken from https://deadmotelsusa.com/. 

And a screenshot of how it looked in the movie.

As I mentioned before, the films gunfight scenes are of particular note in this film for a few reasons.  First, the opening gunfight and in particular, the car chase was actually changed last minute, as they were inspired to make it more like a real-life rolling gunfight and car chase that occurred shortly before filming in SLC that was on the local news. Another interesting fact is that McQuarrie's brother was a former member of the Navy SEALs and was the technical adviser for the gunfights, so the gunplay looks very realistic, and included a lot of things that most people try to edit out of their action scenes, such as clearing malfunctions, press checks, proper reloads, gun transitions, and things that most people don't think to include at all, like the realistic round counts and real tactics of stacking and room clearing. 

Behind the scenes shot of the director and Ryan Phillippe on set at the final shootout. Pic from Radiator Heaven site.

You can still go to some of the places where the movie was shot, the downtown areas really haven't changed much other than the freeway on and off ramps. However, a lot of the places filmed as a stand in for Mexico around the Skull Valley area really no longer exist as they did just a few years back. There's lot of scenes filmed at a motel that used to exist in Delle, UT that have pretty much been bulldozed away.  

One set/location that I would love to know if it still exists is the Mexican Brothel at the end of the movie, which was also filmed in Skull Valley, but I haven't found any trace of it so far on google maps or in my travels. The place has become somewhat of a white whale for me, and I'm still eager to know if it is still out there, though I have the full expectation of it having been demolished at some point. 

Another shot from the final battle