Review of Shoot 'Em Up (2007) by Johan L — 11 Aug 2010

Very recently, your reviewer and his 3 year-old niece had occasion to watch Tex Avery?s Droopy, the classic animated shorts featuring a diminutive meek basset hound. The DVDs, however, came with a warning that decried the social ills of post-World War II era cartoon violence and tongue-in-cheek humor?in f*cking Droopy! While this warning was largely aimed at potential kid viewers, it also defines what truly works in the hard-boiled action flick-cum-send-up Shoot ?Em Up. The movie, doubtlessly inspired as much by Looney Tunes and Avery as it was by John Woo?s Hard Boiled Hong Kong fare, excels at cartoonish violence with tongue held firmly in-cheek. Like drinking the milk left over in a bowl of sugary cereal, the movie is a giddy adrenaline rush for those innumerous filmgoers who watched Droopy as children and miraculously grew up without a trace of criminal insanity.

In the R-rated Shoot ?Em Up, a mysterious man named Mr. Smith (Owen) is entrusted with protecting a newborn from assassins after delivering the baby during a shootout.

Such stylish pulp dictates that the characters never ascend into the over-the-top excess of the gunplay (it is, after all, cartoonish?-not an actual cartoon). Owen embraces the pessimistic grit of his badass anti-hero so extremely well that Sam Spade would probably have given him the Maltese Falcon upon request-?no questions asked. Shoot ?Em Up?s only rub proves to be its overindulgent body count. With so many exuberant action sequences, the audience will become numb before the movie even blows its wad.

Bottom line: Eat it up.