Shoot'Em Up - Que la partie commence

An irreverent send up of action movie cliches that also manages to revel gleefully in them. It's got Clive Owen completely drenched in dedication, its got a bad guy that can't even give a good monologue, its got guns that only need reloading when it's convenient, its got one liners that laugh in the face at the very concept of a one liner. It's got a dark sense of humour but in the same sort of way that something like South Park does; It's harmless, with creative action and some truly laugh out loud gags. It's an indie-rock response to the seriousness of Bourne and the veneered ugliness of Bond. It acknowledges the silliness of action with all its love and heart. And post John Wick, I'm thinking it's time for more. Shoot Em Up is the Garth Merenghi pastiche of action rather than the Scary Movie parody. This film is not for everyone but it is for me.

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.

I'm lobbying for a new film genre to sit alongside the existing ones such as drama, science-fiction, horror and comedy. The new category I'm proposing would be 'Snakes on a Plane.' Besides the obvious Samuel L Jackson film, this genre should be populated with films that tell you everything you need to know about them from the title, thus giving you everything you need to know about whether or not you will enjoy them without sitting down to watch. 'Shoot 'em Up' falls into the 'Snakes on a Plane' category perfectly.

The film 'Shoot 'em Up' is about shooting and killing things. With guns. And carrots (you'll have to watch the film to see whether I'm being serious about the 'carrots' comment). A man, Clive Owen eating a carrot incidentally, witnesses some thugs hunting down a clearly distressed pregnant woman. He just so happens to be possibly the most highly-trained man with a gun in the world - and the perfect person to protect an infant in danger. From then on he takes on every dispensable thug and paid lackey in the entire city, much to the dismay of head bad-guy, Hertz (Paul Giamatti).

Besides the obvious clue in the title as to what the film is about, the only other thing you really need to know is that it NEVER takes itself seriously. 'Shoot 'em Up' knows that it's ludicrously daft and brilliantly over-the-top and it just gets better and better. The action/shooting scenes are clearly the high-points and each one attempts to outdo the last, creating battles in places you probably never thought you'd see and ways of using a gun/bullets that will delight anyone with an appreciation for overblown action scenes.

There's a loose plot, but I won't go into it. It's totally secondary to the gunfights. However, the film is more than just action - largely thanks to its two main stars. There's more than a few references to 'Looney Tunes' and Paul Giamatti stands in for the long-suffering Elmer Fudd as he attempts to track down his Bugs Bunny, the mysteriously-titles 'Mr Smith' (Clive Owen). The two play off each other perfectly and you won't just laugh at how over-the-top the gun scenes are, but also with their constant banter. There are few bad guys you'll love as much as Paul Giamatti!

If you like your films serious and realistic then steer well clear. However, if you like tongue-in-cheek and want something to lose yourself in while you leave your brain at the door, then you'll have everything you want here. If you've also seen either of Jason Statham's 'Crank' films then you'll know roughly the sort of film you're getting here.

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.

Given the choice, I prefer my action films to be as brutally realistic as possible, but if film-makers are insistent about going down the cartoonish violence route, they might as well go the whole nine yards, as in Shoot 'Em Up, a relentlessly OTT slam-bang actioner that starts out all guns blazing and doesn't call it quits until writer/director Michael Davis has thrown every possible crazy idea he can come up with onto the screen.

This wild, anything goes approach could be compared to the previous year's Crank, but unlike that film, which was crippled by unlikeable characters, unnecessary vulgarity and a glut of irritatingly showy editing tricks, Shoot 'Em' up remains a classy and often clever piece of film-making despite its highly preposterous plot: Davis's effective direction is cool and slick without resorting to migraine inducing visual gimmickry; stars Owen and Bellucci effortlessly ooze sex appeal and charisma, whilst Paul Giamatti, as ultra-vicious killer Hertz, is utterly loathsome; there are some inspired visual gags for the eagle-eyed; and the never-ending gun-play is both brilliantly inventive and absolutely blistering. Hell, the film even manages to deliver an ironic anti-gun message whilst all the bullets are flying and people are dying.

In short this film is everything Crank would dearly have loved to have been, and then some.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.