"Shoot 'Em Up"

Shoot 'Em Up
Directed by Michael Davis
Starring Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and Monica Bellucci
Run Time: 87 minutes
Rated R

Although I am very late in reviewing this film as it was released in 2007, I still can't help writing the review after watching it for the first time today. It is very rare that I am a fan of films that are merely in it for the action and has no greater theme than, "Wow, look at what just happened on screen, that was amazing!" To me, though, Shoot 'Em Up took a genre that is both widely sought after by the common populous and criticized by the art community and tried to satisfy both in a very odd fashion. To accomplish this goal, Michael Davis uses a time-honored classic technique: absurdity.

The story is almost irrelevant here because of aforementioned absurdity. It involves a protagonist who may or may not be the Unibomber and a former black ops operative (Clive Owen), a prostitute whose specialty is breast feeding her clients (Monica Bellucci), a man who can be identified by his love of talking, his extremely high intelligence, and his "Flight of the Valkyries" ringtone (Paul Giamatti), and a baby who falls asleep to heavy metal. From the get-go, this film throws out any intention of being completely serious. Instead, it focuses on impossible and fun to watch gunfights that are completely impossible in any way, shape or form without relying on superpowers to explain it. As the movie progresses, the audience's only expectation can be that they don't know exactly what is going to happen next, but they do know that it will involve a lot of bullets, maybe some blood, and most definitely a lot of physical action...in every sense of the word "physical", depending on the scene.

The acting is similar to movies such as Planet Terror, where it simply is not important for the hero to be multi-faceted in his intentions. Clive Owen's character, simply known as Smith, gets involved in the storyline only because he happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. Monica Belluci is certainly a very attractive woman, but I had hoped they would have done a slight bit more with her character if only to spice things up a bit more. The real pleasure, though, was watching Mr. Paul Giamatti as Hertz. He was a pleasure to watch as his character tried to think one step ahead of Smith and also keep everyone and everything else in line, including his own home life. I must also say that in my personal opinion, after watching this film, I really thought and still think that Giamatti could potentially replace Heath Ledger as the next Joker, if only because I could see him staying true to the character already established while bringing in his own twisted sense of the circumstances.

There's really nothing more that can be said after that. The special effects were great, as they would have to be in a show that does not intend to rely on a gripping story to hold its audience's attention. The music was fun to listen to in-between gunshots (so not very often). And it didn't run too long, outstaying its welcome. This is not a film I would bring the whole family to watch, but for a couple of friends who don't want to think to hard on a Friday night and just want to watch amazing things happen on screen that they can both be in awe of and laugh at, this is the show to watch.

-Jack Jarden