Review of Shoot 'Em Up (2007) by Jason R — 13 Sep 2011

Imagine a movie that mixes aspects of the 1988 fantasy movie Willow and a gritty British gangster movie from the early 00's and you got Shoot Em Up. Clive Owen is at the wrong place at the wrong time when he saves a woman who is going into labor from a pack of hitmen, who are trying to kill her baby. He delivers the baby while shooting bad guys and sorta just jumps into this like its no big deal. He manages to keep the baby alive even when the mother is killed and spends the whole movie protecting this baby from these mafia guys who want the baby killed for some weird reason that had something to do with some politician.

This was really crazy and all over the place but had a certain charm to it with its weirdness that kept me watching. Its by no means a perfect action movie at all, having certain things that look silly including a carrot going through the back of someones head when its shoved in their mouth. That's right I said a CARROT!!! Not a steel carrot, not a carrot with a knife on it or anything like that, but a real carrot. To say this was very unrealistic and outlandish is an understatement.

There's other stuff like the carrot that just makes this silly and kind of cartoonish, but it somehow manages to be entertaining enough to not totally hate it. Clive Owen does a good job as the bad ass, who complains about everything but deep down has a gentle heart. Paul Giamatti was too over the top to be taken anywhere near serious. He wasn't very threatening as a villain either and I started to laugh when he tried to act like a bad ass.

I absolutely fell in love with Monica Bellucci and have never seen anything with her before but I thought she was breathe taking as the French or Spanish hooker with a heart of gold, who is on the run from the baby killer hitmen with Owen. A few other decent character actors such as Stephen McHattie and Greg Bryk play creeps just perfectly. If you've seen those two in the 2005 David Cronenberg movie History of Violence you can get another example of their outright creepiness, when they played serial killers who murder a child in that movie.

All in all not a perfect action movie and was somewhat too clever and quirky for its own good, but I admire what they tried to do with it. It's not your average action movie at all but sometimes different doesn't always work out. If you're a very meat and potato's action movie person then this will leave a sour taste in your mouth, but if you like action films which a quirky twist then this might work out nicely for you.