Shoot ‘Em Up 1/5
Going into a movie called Shoot ‘Em Up, one finds oneself hoping it won’t be as bad as you think, and also strangely compelled by the fact that Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti have signed on to it.
It is as bad as you think.
Clive Owen plays a cookie-cutter, lone-wolf hero who sees a pregnant woman being chased by some guys with guns. He kills the guys, delivers the baby and then finds himself being chased by more guys with guns. He eats some carrots. Shoots some guys. Kills some guys with carrots. Goes to see a hooker. Shoots more guys. Slides while shooting. Jumps while shooting. Says some bad puns.
Meanwhile, Paul Giamatti, plays a slightly less cookie-cutter villain who constantly has to be on the phone with his wife and show off his intellect. He shoots at Clive Owen. Tortures the hooker. Shoots at Clive Owen. Tells some bad jokes. Shoots at Clive Owen. Magically knows where Clive Owen has run off to hide. Tortures his henchmen. Shoots at Clive Owen. Tells more bad jokes.
And that’s the movie.
There were some fun gun fights. There were some interesting deaths. But there was not a single good line in the movie. And there were a lot of terrible lines. This movie was worse than Hitman and as bad, if not worse, than AVP-R. The only redeeming quality this movie had was the end credits, and I’m not being facetious, the end credits had a really good and artsy animation sequence, much like the opening to Casino Royale. I would have loved to have seen it at the beginning and then I could have turned off the movie.
There were, I suppose some artsy shots that I liked, but overall this movie suffered from a nerdy writer/director who decided to put his wet dream on film. One of the special features shows the director’s animated storyboards for the action sequences, which he used to convince the studio that he should direct. They are just as bad as the movie.
A number of reviewers have said that this movie is good because it is so over the top as to be funny. It wasn’t funny, it was stupid.
“We need to give our hero something to set him apart…how about an affinity for carrots?”
“Oooh! and then we can throw in all these Bugs Bunny lines!”
“Well, this wouldn’t be a movie if he didn’t say ‘What’s up, doc’!”
“Right, and then every other joke line that we put in can be an easy joke, too, we won’t even need to stretch our brains!”
“Well, if he’s hanging out with a hooker, they have to have sex…”
“…While he shoots bad guys…”
“…And then at the end, he can say ‘WHAT A WAY TO BLOW YOUR LOAD!!!!’”
“Didn’t we already make a joke about blowing loads?”
“Yeah, but who will remember?”
“Wasn’t it only like half an hour earlier in the movie?”
“I think it is a funny enough phrase to get at least two jokes. I mean, it refers to both guns and penises! Men’ll think it’s hilarious. At least straight men, will. You are a straight man, aren’t you?”
“Perfect, cut and print!”
“I’m not sure we print any more what with using computers and digital stuff.”
“Whatever, I need to go read some more articles in Maxim. If I want to make any other movies, I need to have my finger on the pulse of the male world.”
I don’t think I need to say anything else on this stinker.
Overall: Not funny, not interesting, not anything. A disappointment for any Clive Owen or Paul Giamatti fans. 1 out of 5 stars. I hated it.
May 11, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Man you know what went wrong for you probably your speakers didn’t do the sound right.
But in all seriousness. I totally and completely understand where you are coming from and still really enjoyed it. Like gonna buy it enjoyed it.
“but overall this movie suffered from a nerdy writer/director who decided to put his wet dream on film.”
Tarantino issues.
The sock on the baby’s head was hilarious. Owens’ backstory is great. Giamatti doesn’t magically know things he’s a criminal profiler. The scene with the politician also great. The hooker admittedly doesn’t not do the best acting job and falls in love with him too quickly and the blow your load thing was totally retarded. But the action sequences are great. I really thought this was Crank good. Turn signal diatribe also great. And at least the plot held together and did not leak water like a seive Hitman style.
May 11, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Even if you’re square enough to find celebrations of mass slaughter tacky, it’s hard to deny that Clive Owen drives carrots through his opponents’ skulls with such stylish panache you forget real carrots aren’t lethal. Similarly, the way he casually mows down a mob while spontaneously delivering a baby in the opening sequence makes it seem only reasonable that he’d bully a prostitute (Monica Bellucci) into nursing it while the trio flee from cackling, villainous Paul Giamatti, or that she’d quickly fall in love with her laconic abuser, interrupting her maternal duties only long enough to raise some cash by giving a blow job in an alley. One can certainly be amused and entertained by writer-director Michael Davis’s hyperbolic action frolics–I was–but not without feeling pretty low and stupid.
I think this guy may have our fundamental disagreement down. I really like watching Clive Owen kill people with carrots. Just good fun. But the movie did treat us like morons.
May 11, 2008 at 5:38 pm
He’s a poor criminal profiler. I like really violent movies as much as the next guy, I loved Sin City, I really liked Crank, but this just seemed stupid to me. And I didn’t see any panache in the carrots, nor did I figure out what Owens’s backstory was. The obsession with boobs and returning to the womb was too obvious and a little sickening. More power to you, Liz, but I hated it.
May 12, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Warned you.
June 19, 2008 at 11:16 am
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Conversancy.
July 11, 2008 at 10:47 pm
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