Shoot 'Em Up - Movie Review

The first thing I was reminded of, having seen this movie, was that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets a gun and uses it to do really stupid and mundane things like change the channel on his television which sends the whole town in uproar because they've never seen anything so irresponsible and he has his license revoked.

That's what Shoot 'Em Up was like. Not mundane. I actually enjoyed this Michael Davis movie. The two leads, Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti play off each other in what is essentially a protracted gun battle across various scenes and locations.

Clive Owen is his good self as the quiet, gun toting anti-hero Mr Smith, who knows what he hates. You can't help but cheer when he:
- shoots the ponytail off a 40 year old man
- steals the BMW off some prick parking illegally in a disabled zone
- forces a Mercedes driver off the road for littering and failing to indicate
- spanks a mother for hitting her child
-ties up a guard for slurping his coffee and saying "ah"
-shoots the earring off a guy and the foot of some Birkenstock wearing drug addict.

What this tells me is that I have a lot in common with Davis or these are common pet peeves.

Paul Giamatti is in excellent form as the sadistic, ex-forensic behavioural consultant Hertz. You can't look away because you're drawn into his bad guy performance. One of the truly great character actors.

Apparently, this is the first movie to have a love scene gunfight and a skydiving mid-air gunfight. But needless to say, guns and bullets are central to the movie and it's obvious that the director loves a gunfight.

Things to keep in mind before watching the movie. Turn off your reality check meter, this isn't meant to be taken seriously and the moving/sweeping/dizzying gunfights are very cinematic but hardly real and gritty. I mentioned Homer Simpson earlier and it is fitting because this has a certain cartoony quality to it so the violence doesn't seem as real. At least until the part where the hero is getting tortured. He's managed to evoke enough of a liking for him that you feel his pain and suffering at having the one thing he's good at taken away from him.

Not one for the kiddies, but any action movie loving bloke should enjoy it. With lots of gun play and a ripping sound track and Monica Bellucci (if you're into that) then definitely pick it up. It's enough of a keeper that I might go and buy a copy.