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Shoot Em Up (Michael Davis)
"It's Exactly What You'd Expect It To Be"
MR. Smith delivers a baby during a shootout in a warehouse. After the mother is killed, he must protect the baby himself, all while shooting bad guys dead.
There are really two types of action films. Smart ones, such as the Bourne films and dumb ones, like The Transporter 2 and Crank. Can you guess which one of these two Shoot Em Up falls under? I'm not saying a dumb action film is bad, unless it says directed by Michael Bay on it. (save for The Rock). Instead a dumb action film is something you watch when you want to get away from the everyday things of life, suspend any sense of reality and enjoy shoot-outs and car chases. Shoot Em Up is this in a nutshell. It takes the dumb action film and turns up the action. Not once does it take itself seriously, but it never really crosses the line of parody either.
Within the first 5 minutes we are thrown into the front seat. When people say this film has action from start to finish, they literally mean it. There is no build up for the characters or story, instead our opening shot is of Clive Owen eating a carrot, he sees a pregnant woman running for her life and then sees the guy chasing her. Being the nice guy he is, he kills that man with his carrot and delivers the baby...all while still shooting bad guys. During the shoot out the mother ends up dead and Owen takes it upon himself to protect this child, so he runs up stairs, jumps across buildings into rooms and shoots the bad guys...while carrying this baby. This is simply the first ten minutes of the film. If at any point you seem to be rolling your eyes, do not read on and don't even bother seeing this flick.
After trying to unsuccessfully leave the baby in a park, our "hero" tries to leave the baby with a lactating prostitute, the very lovely Monica Bellucci. For some reason the bad guy, played by character actor Paul Giamatti knows this, well...because he's good at knowing things. More shooting entails and more suspension of reality ensues. How does Giamatti know all these things about where our guy lives, where he is going and who he really is, is never explained. He always had a thing for knowing this stuff apparently, he worked with the CSI before, or some other organization. Honestly, it's just a poor excuse to keep the film moving at a fast pace. The only scenes that are slow are the ones where characters need to throw in some dialogue to try and tell us the little bit of story there is. It's the usual stuff too, why they are after the baby, what they plan to do with it, who they are working for, etc. After those brief 5 minutes it's back into the action with both guns blazing.
Shoot Em Up is one of those films where you can learn stuff, for instance; I learned you can still shoot and kill people while having sex. As well as you can kill people with carrots, survive a car crash with no seat belt, run directly towards a guy shooting at you with an Uzi and not get touched by one bullet, shoot someone with 5 bullets and your fingers and of course jump out of a plane and shoot dozens of men then land safely on the ground. These are just some of the things that happen in this film, I didn't even mention the part where Owen shoots the playground spinning thing to save the kid or when he ties guns to shelfs with strings then uses said string to fire those guns at bad guys. Again, if your eyes roll at anytime...please do not see this film.
After all is said and done, I enjoyed myself. I knew exactly what I was getting into, basically it's the sequel to Crank. Although I enjoyed this one a bit more, it's certainly heavy on the action and lite on everything else. We know absolutely nothing about Owen's character. Sure Giamatti says some things about who he thinks he is, but it is never confirmed. Should we care for this guy with no first name and no background? Better yet...should we even care if we care...should we even think at all during this movie? No people. The purpose of this flick, as far as I can tell was to show over the top action sequence. Job well done.
"It's Exactly What You'd Expect It To Be"
MR. Smith delivers a baby during a shootout in a warehouse. After the mother is killed, he must protect the baby himself, all while shooting bad guys dead.
There are really two types of action films. Smart ones, such as the Bourne films and dumb ones, like The Transporter 2 and Crank. Can you guess which one of these two Shoot Em Up falls under? I'm not saying a dumb action film is bad, unless it says directed by Michael Bay on it. (save for The Rock). Instead a dumb action film is something you watch when you want to get away from the everyday things of life, suspend any sense of reality and enjoy shoot-outs and car chases. Shoot Em Up is this in a nutshell. It takes the dumb action film and turns up the action. Not once does it take itself seriously, but it never really crosses the line of parody either.
Within the first 5 minutes we are thrown into the front seat. When people say this film has action from start to finish, they literally mean it. There is no build up for the characters or story, instead our opening shot is of Clive Owen eating a carrot, he sees a pregnant woman running for her life and then sees the guy chasing her. Being the nice guy he is, he kills that man with his carrot and delivers the baby...all while still shooting bad guys. During the shoot out the mother ends up dead and Owen takes it upon himself to protect this child, so he runs up stairs, jumps across buildings into rooms and shoots the bad guys...while carrying this baby. This is simply the first ten minutes of the film. If at any point you seem to be rolling your eyes, do not read on and don't even bother seeing this flick.
After trying to unsuccessfully leave the baby in a park, our "hero" tries to leave the baby with a lactating prostitute, the very lovely Monica Bellucci. For some reason the bad guy, played by character actor Paul Giamatti knows this, well...because he's good at knowing things. More shooting entails and more suspension of reality ensues. How does Giamatti know all these things about where our guy lives, where he is going and who he really is, is never explained. He always had a thing for knowing this stuff apparently, he worked with the CSI before, or some other organization. Honestly, it's just a poor excuse to keep the film moving at a fast pace. The only scenes that are slow are the ones where characters need to throw in some dialogue to try and tell us the little bit of story there is. It's the usual stuff too, why they are after the baby, what they plan to do with it, who they are working for, etc. After those brief 5 minutes it's back into the action with both guns blazing.
Shoot Em Up is one of those films where you can learn stuff, for instance; I learned you can still shoot and kill people while having sex. As well as you can kill people with carrots, survive a car crash with no seat belt, run directly towards a guy shooting at you with an Uzi and not get touched by one bullet, shoot someone with 5 bullets and your fingers and of course jump out of a plane and shoot dozens of men then land safely on the ground. These are just some of the things that happen in this film, I didn't even mention the part where Owen shoots the playground spinning thing to save the kid or when he ties guns to shelfs with strings then uses said string to fire those guns at bad guys. Again, if your eyes roll at anytime...please do not see this film.
After all is said and done, I enjoyed myself. I knew exactly what I was getting into, basically it's the sequel to Crank. Although I enjoyed this one a bit more, it's certainly heavy on the action and lite on everything else. We know absolutely nothing about Owen's character. Sure Giamatti says some things about who he thinks he is, but it is never confirmed. Should we care for this guy with no first name and no background? Better yet...should we even care if we care...should we even think at all during this movie? No people. The purpose of this flick, as far as I can tell was to show over the top action sequence. Job well done.