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In The Marksman (2021), Liam Neeson's character fires two gunshots at a Chevrolet SUV. The first penetrates the windshield and kills the driver.
Where exactly does he fire the second shot at? The wheel?
Is this scene realistic? Where do you usually aim at a SUV, to roll it over? Any snipers here?
Slow-mo gif of the flip itself…
The shot was not what rolled it over. What rolled it over in this movie was the fact that the driver was dead and the steering wheel had no one to control it anymore. A fast sverve to the right rolls the car over as fast movement shifts the center of gravity. See this video for an example of this.
This is a common unrealistic trope in movies, as anti roll bars are exactly what prevents this, any modern car would not just roll over from a fast steer, or there would be TONS of accidents every day. In this particular instance it is extremely exaggerated and not something that could happen in real life.
Important to note is also that the second shot has absolutely no impact on the car flipping over, it is not even clear what it does. As said previously, a shot cannot magically flip a car over, this only happens through a shift of center of gravity. Maybe it killed the second passenger who held the steering wheel but this is not clear at all and one can only assume. To restate, in this scene there is a big focus on action instead of realism or even believability.
Summary:
No, a shot like this can not roll over an SUV or any other car. The second shot fired did not even seem to hit any structural part of the car judging from the camera-shot after, because the car would have behaved very differently.
Is it possible to cause a roll-over? Yes, take out the driver — check — and then hit a front tire to cause an uncontrollable swerve, potentially making the rim dig in and causing the vehicle roll over. It can happen, but that particular scenario is more luck than skill, because it depends on things you cannot control as the shooter.
...because of you look closely, you can see that the vehicle jumps up, and that cannot happen unless you apply a force in that direction.
"So, how do they do that?"
They use an air cannon. You can see it firing...
The cloud from when the cannon fires is very visible
...and when the vehicle shows its underside, you can even see the cannon, still venting vapor.
Arrow shows the cannon, the ellipse shows the vapor it is venting
You can see it all for yourself if you pause the video, then use the period key [ . ] to frame-step the video.
Actually it's a very clever depiction. Liam Neeson's character has figured out as to how to beat all of them at once since he cannot beat them if they get out of car.
In first shot he kills the driver so that he cannot control/apply brakes.
In second shot, he kills the front left tire, which causes it to burst and halt consequently causing the momentum of uncontrolled car to flip it over.
It's pretty realistic. Check out the video below.
