Shoot 'Em Up Review

"Shoot 'Em Up" reviews

Movie

Shoot 'Em Up

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2007-09-10 23:21:15

Rating

2.5/5

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

The excessive but wonderfully creative bloodlust in Shoot 'Em Up takes glorified violence to a new level. Let's just say the film lives up to its title.

Story

Oh, boy, does it ever! From the opening sequence, in which Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) inadvertently helps an ultimately doomed woman deliver her baby amid a hail of bullets and then severs the umbilical chord by shooting it, you get a pretty clear picture of what you're in for here. Smith may be the "angriest man in the world," but he's also a fairly chivalrous one. Once he has the little tyke in his possession, he has no other choice but to protect it from an endless stream of assailants--led by the sadistic Hertz (Paul Giamatti)--engaging in every conceivable permutation of gunfight. Smith even teams up with a prostitute (Monica Bellucci) whose specialty is catering to those men with a fetish for suckling on lactating breasts. She proves very useful in this scenario. Question is, why does everyone want this baby dead? Trust me, the explanation is stupid and superfluous; it's the 80-minute shooting gallery that makes this actioner fly.

Acting

Even though Clive Owen is absolutely spot-on as the hardboiled antihero Mr. Smith, the actor must be able to do it in his sleep by now, having basically played the same role in films such as Inside Man and Children of Men. And along with Children of Men, he's now pretty good at assisting a woman in childbirth, too. Still, we love it when he shoots a gun. Giamatti is the one who goes out on a limb in Shoot 'Em Up. When casting a cold-blooded vicious killer, the sweet sad sack from Sideways isn't your immediate image. Ah, but that's what makes Giamatti such a consummate actor. Flashing a Cheshire cat-like grin and armed with an arsenal of one-liners, he doesn't downplay his nerdy appearance but rather relishes it, playing Hertz as far over the top as he can possibly get without looking completely ridiculous—which allows him to say things like, "Well, f**k me sideways," with a straight face. Giamatti is a real treat. Bellucci, on the other hand, is fairly wasted. She's obviously there to add a feminine touch--being able to feed the baby and all—as well as have raucous sex with our leading man. But her character doesn't really add anything else to the proceedings.

Direction

Writer/director Michael Davis really hasn't had his shot (pun intended) yet. Moving up from the B-movies (anyone heard of Monster Man or Girl Fever?), Davis finally gets to show some of his stuff with Shoot 'Em Up. Obviously influenced by the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantinos of the filmmaking world, Davis crafts a thrilling, action-packed film, shot in that gritty style so popular these days. Besides all the gunplay, Davis also incorporates a few other creative ways of offing people, such as shoving a carrot (something Mr. Smith is fond of eating) into someone's eye. And, well, a lactating prostitute is just pure genius. Still, it's all about guns, which rule supreme, as well they should with such a titular title. The four or five gun battles get more spectacular, culminating with an aerial shootout after jumping out of an airplane with parachutes. Shoot 'Em Up, however, could have used a rewrite by Mr. Tarantino. Sure, the purpose of this movie is to show as many guns being shot off in as many ways as possible, but a plausible story would have been nice, too. Oh well.

Bottom Line

Hollywood.com rated this film 2 1/2 stars.

Copyright © CinemaSource 2007.

Movie

Shoot 'Em Up

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2007-09-07 14:40:32

Provider

MRIB

Review

Bang! Bang! and yet more Bang! This is blisteringly exciting, Get ready for a rollicking all action film with no morals whatsoever. This a stupendous gun-fest of a film with a brilliantly cast clunky hitman in the form of Sideways's Paul Giamatti. Then Clive Owen as a Man With no Name (well, Mr Smith) for the 21st Century with Monica Belluci voluptuously rounding out the lead roles in this triad of pure unadulterated action.

A pregnant woman is pursued by a killer. Whilst she doesn't make it, the baby is delivered by Mr Smith and does. So, rescued in suitably bizarre fashion by Mr 'just minding my own business' Smith, thus begins this tasteless gun-fest with multiple murders and shoot outs / offs / ups and even downs. Mr Smith engages old-social(!)-friend DQ to look after the new born, whilst one Mr Hertz leads the foray and plethora of guns for hire trying to kill the kid and wreak vengeance on Smith for his interference. Apparently some despot of a politician (and potential presidential candidate!) is harvesting bone marrow by getting women pregnant (yes, it's that gross!) then taking their babies. And so nefarious wheeler-dealing politics and henchman-loaded baddies are the perpetrators behind it all. But who cares? No one really. Lets have another gunfight and kill about a dozen people in ten seconds!

If you took some Asia Extreme films, John Woo's early output and a bunch of blood thirsty straight to video films and rolled them into one, edited them down to a reasonable length with just the gusto and slick action sequences left, you'd have the semblance of Shoot 'Em Up. You can't ignore the fact that Director Davis knows exactly where to put, and then move, and then put, and then move the camera. The action choreography is faultless and the one liners are cringingly glib. It makes Bourne look like Driving Miss Daisy. Without Owen, Giamatti and Belluci this would have surely ended up in some budget DVD bargain bin(bag). With them you'll doubtless bust a gut laughing and screaming at the tirade of ridiculous scenarios and set ups they've managed to eek out of the scriptwriter's (Davis again) head and squeeze into one movie.

If you like mindless completely over the top kill fests with a sense of the inventive and a good belly laugh humour on the side, go see. Two questions though: Can hired killers really be such atrocious shots? and Is Clive Owen making revenge movies all about not being cast as Bond?

Copyright © MRIB 2007.