Shoot 'em up - Spara o muori

Wow. Shoot 'Em Up is exactly what it claims to be. An action movie. Balls to the wall, no holds barred, but nothing more. And that's exactly what you get. Don't go expecting high art...SEU doesn't take itself seriously enough for that. But that's exactly what makes it work. It KNOWS it's over the top, and doesn't try to hide it. Clive Owen's Smith character is the Bugs Bunny to Paul Giamatti's Hurtz Elmer Fudd. The film takes the best cartoon elements, makes them flesh, and still kicks in that over the top craziness. Bad puns that are so bad they're good, action sequences that there just for the sake of having an action sequence, and the wildest sex scene ever...it's amazing. It's the funniest, coolest, most amazing mix of stunts, bad one liners and paper think plot lines.

You get everything you expect from Shoot 'Em Up...and it's all great.

Some of the comments left by people on here show just how clueless movie goers can be. As if you can't tell that there's a slight tongue-in-cheek feel to the movie. Doesn't the stupidly high kill count or OTT methods used to kill people make that obvious to you? Does a movie with the title "Shoot em up" sound like a serious piece of work? Come on some of you just need to relax and use your brains a little.

I haven't much to say on the movie itself since its ones of those "entertained me but probably won't buy the DVD" films I so often see in cinemas. Acting was good, action was good, plot was OK. Go see it. If you love it - great, if you don't - oh well. It really is one of those kind of movies. Just remember not expect a serious film reminiscent of James Bond or Die Hard, OK?.

Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and Monica Belluci star in "Shoot 'Em Up," a 2007 film that I believe is a parody of the action genre. It has to be.

Owen plays a former black ops who helps a woman deliver a baby and then finds himself on the run with the baby as hundreds of people chase him and shoot at him.

I won't go into the whys and wherefores. I will only say that it is non-stop action, with Owen shooting in all kinds of situations - sliding on oil leaks under cars, having sex, sitting, standing, running, jumping, parachuting out of a plane -- he never stops. When he's not shooting he's punching, knifing, or slamming someone's head somewhere. Or eating a carrot.

Monica Belluci is the hooker he asks to help care for the baby as the two of them run for their lives, the baby in tow wearing a bullet-proof vest.

The body count is unbelievable.

Exciting, fun, bloody, violent, and preposterous, you'll be on the edge of your seat rooting for him to make the world safe.

Someone once told me that movies are made for 15-year-old boys in Taiwan. This kind of action film definitely is. You can sit back and watch car chases, thermal guns, nudity, you name it - you don't need to know a word of English.

Clive Owen comes up against Paul Giamatti, and the two actors couldn't be more different. Owen is deadpan and deadly, Giamatti is a showman who can play an evil character like this or comedy with equal facility. I understand he recently played, of all things, Hamlet, and received wonderful reviews.

I really hope Clive Owen plays James Bond. I think he'd be wonderful.

As I stated above, this movie is a fun ride. The script was probably written by a 13 year old kid who plays a lot of video games, but that's why it's great. You can just kick back, turn your brain off for 80 minutes, and enjoy. It is the ultimate guy movie. And for the one liners: as cheesy and lame as you could ask for. Shoot Em Up was made to entertain the 20 something action junkie, so if you aren't one, you will no doubt hate this flick. But for the rest of us, who all have that 13 year old immature video gamer still inside, you gotta see it. I think Clive Owen might be the first true action star Hollywood has had in a long time. One other enjoyable feature: great soundtrack. Shootout scene with Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" in the background: you can't ask for anything better. I give Shoot Em Up 8 out of 10.

I wasn't really sure what to make of this movie before I went to the advanced screening. I heard from a friend of mine at the Chicago Tribune (she's female, and you'll see why that matters in a second) and she said, "It was so stupid! It was like, BANG BANG BANG, EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE, BANG BANG BANG! Then gallons of blood and we move on." For some reason, the little boy in me that loved the scene in Predator where all of the soldiers shoot at open woods for a complete minute, got very excited. She wasn't kidding, either, that's just what this movie was. Don't worry about the plot, it's not really a concern. Don't worry about the script either, the lines are so over the top and shallow that you know a man wrote this script without allowing anyone to comment on it.

At the same time, this movie is just plain fun. You will find yourself laughing from the moment the movie starts to the ending (which you won't be glancing at your watch while waiting for). There are funny lines, funny situations, and stuff that is so impossible in the real world that you can't help but chuckle. Various moments during the film, I found myself applauding along with the audience, maybe not for the film, but for how writer/director Michael Davis got our hero out of another situation.

The directing, as opposed to the writing, was done very well, especially for a movie like this. If you take the directing too seriously, the script won't work, which is probably why Michael Davis did both. Clive Owen delivers another strong performance, adapting to the cheesy script and outrageous events like a participant in a prank or gag. Monica Bellucci plays the most serious role in the film, and still takes to mocking her life and situation in this movie like the rest of them. My favorite character would still have to be the sly Paul Giamatti, who is given some pretty crazy situations himself but they are coupled with the only lines of any intelligence (or longer than about four words).

By the end of this movie, I was having a lot of fun watching a plot unfold that I didn't really care about. That doesn't deter the film, though, because it's kind of like a stunt show, you're not really concerned with the story. I loved it and, apparently, so did most of the audience. It really reminded me of seeing, well, a live action movie that was more like a video game (we even have coordinated colors for the costumes of the "bad guys" in the various "levels"). I'd like to use this film as an example to my (former) favorite critic Roger Ebert as a perfect example of how video games can be construed in the same light as video games, because Roger, this is clearly a movie made by a large video game fan.