Review of Shoot 'Em Up (2007) by Alec D — 12 Sep 2010

My favorite action movie of all time, time to review Shoot Em' Up. The formula for Shoot em' up is simple, Clive Owens + Guns + Monica Bellucci Naked = Victory. This movie just delivers on so many levels and blows me away every time I see it. You should note how I've seen this movie 73 times, that's 104.63 hours of Shoot Em' Up and it still finds new ways to entertain me. Spoilers lie within, beware.

Well starting with the plot which is very complex for an action movie. It starts when Smith, an ordinary homeless man eating a carrot, sees a pregnant lady being chased by a guy with a gun. Smith follows the man and kills him by stabbing him in the face with a carrot, then proceeds by saying a carrot related one liner. He then takes a gun from the pregnant lady and kills like 20 henchmen with it. The lady dies, but Smith still has the baby and he takes this baby everywhere. He's chased by government agents some thugs that are under Paul Giamatti's control, and he guns every one of them down. The plot is actually quite interesting offering twists and turns that you wouldn't see coming. The delivery is a little bit cliche, but overall it is a very intricate plot. The plot, although good, shouldn't be the reason you'd see Shoot Em' Up though. You see Shoot Em' Up for gunfights.

Each gun fight is staged at a new location offering different obstacles, different scenario's and different ways to say one-liners that are funnier than shit. Smith is almost always the victor of these skirmishes due actually to his greater intelligence. Sure 75% of the action in this movie is completely impossible and would result in Smith dieing a very dramatic death, but it's so interesting to watch, you end up not giving two shits how impossible it is. The action is very fun to watch because you can see that the characters are thinking and adapting to the scenario's to battle each other more efficiently. In most modern day action there is generally one main gimmick to every action sequence. In Shoot Em' Up Smith exploits multiple gimmicks, it's not just a use A to get to B, it's a use A to get to D which will get me to C and this will lead me back to B. For example at the end of Rambo 4 he use a 50cal gun to kill a lot of bad guys. If Rambo 4 was anywhere near as intelligent as Shoot Em' Up is Rambo would have used a lot more then just one big ass gun to kill all the bad guys and save his friends. Overall each action scene is very well put together, genuine and ingenious. I'd go to say they deserve something along the lines of a 12/10.

Characters and acting which is so above par. Giamatti and Owens have this bad guy to good guy chemistry that you don't get from the average action movie. It is so damn entertaining to see them shoot guns at each other while spouting one liners. Their performances are so great for an action movie, not saying they should win an academy award or something like that. Just they clearly understand what kind of movie they are in and they aren't too silly or too serious, they are perfect. Each one liner is better then the last ranging from "fuck me sideways," to "so much for wearing seat belts," they just keep them coming. Not to say they are the only ones. Monica Bellucci, Stephen Mchattie and other random thugs and henchmen offer ridiculously hysterical one-liners too. Everyone is great in their role, nobody takes it too seriously and the characters are all hilarious.

There is not that much more to talk about other then maybe how poorly this movie did. It's a real shame since it was such an awesome flick that it opened up behind the fucking terrible Halloween remake in 2007.

Shoot Em' Up's twisting plot mixed with hilarious characters, campy acting and outstanding action makes it one of the best action flicks of all time. The only reason I could come up with to not see this film is if you really despise the action genre. So if you don't fall under that category then definitely go give this film a watch and buy it if you love it as much as I do.