The Gorko Gazette

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10.8.2025 7:00 AM

Firecrackers and Missing Fingers: A Documentary by Sean Ryan

Firecrackers and Missing Fingers: A Documentary

Run time: 69 minutes
Rating: MA (Mature Audiences)
Brown Banana Rating: 72%

When my brother, a hand reconstruction surgeon, asked me to accompany him to this movie, I had no idea what gruesome imagery would flash by my face. My brother, Dr. Steven Cole, only sits in the front row at movies. He told me that it is the only way that he can get fully immersed in the experience of motion pictures. I took my front row seat.

I was amazed, shocked, disgusted and titillated by the images of, mostly, teenagers, who were recorded, moments before the explosions that would rip their fingers from their hands like a power lifter taking a sledge hammer to a child’s hand. Of course, it was all on the small scale. The small hands, post explosion, were nothing more, in most cases, than bloody stumps attached to young men whose mouths screamed obscenities for upwards of one to one on a half minutes. After that, they would pass out.

The recording would usually cut off after the victim went down. There were about fifty recordings of scenes like this. After forty-four, I lost count. I watched hands lose fingers in: snow, hurricanes, in the middle of the desert with scorching heat, in pools at birthday parties and dozens of other situations.

I would not recommend this movie to anyone who cannot stand the sight of blood. The real pain, comes not from the blood, but from the faces of the young men, boys, in some cases, whose lives will never be the same.

At the end of the movie, after the explosions and screaming, four boys were shown, with their prosthetic hands. One boy, a junior in high school, even managed to play baseball as a starting pitcher with his mechanical hand. Another boy, had a solid gold hand, that was made mobile by some other electronic and mechanical parts that were hidden under the solid 24 karat gold.

Money, pain, tortured regrets and lots of blood.

If you are into Schadenfreude with a twist of Edgar Allan Poe thrown in—Firecrackers and Missing Fingers is for you.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sean Ryan is a writer. That much is certain. He is also sure that he enjoys learning languages and reading French novels changed his life. He enjoys spending time with his family, something which he is blessed to admit. His two young nephews, especially, provide him with great affection and it goes both ways. He lives in San Diego, CA.