Shoot 'Em Up

2007
  • Trust Weighted Very Good
  • 114 Trust Points
 

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Wick's Review

Created Jul 27, 2009 06:52PM PST • Edited Jan 30, 2013 09:43PM PST

  1. Quality
  2. Summary
    Very Good 3.5

    Stunt Movie Extraordinaire, up there with Wanted, though more of a gimmick given the completely contrived plot. Action theatrics are the thing here. Writer-director Michael Davis apparently imagined a wildly inventive collection of gunplay set pieces and created an entire movie to showcase them. Fortunately he did so with panache, a handful of LOL lines and three charismatic stars. Bravo.

  4. Acting
    Very Good 3.5

    Clive Owen proves himself a first class action hero. Laconic, man’s man handsome, deadly with a quip and all manner of weapons, he’s reliably charismatic, a good thing since he’s on screen almost the entire movie. Speaking of his weapons panoply, while there is gunplay galore, his non-traditional weapons are especially amusing, particularly his taste for crisp carrots. Put it this way, the carrot plays the role of the stick in this movie.

    Monica Bellucci gorgeously upholds her end of the reluctant hero-heroine duopoly. A world-class looker, she’s also a capable enough actress to not leave you thinking “Damn she’s hot, if only she could act.” She can.

    Paul Giamatti chews the scenery as the brilliant crime lord. A world-class actor, he’s able to pull this off even though he has the opposite problem as Signorina Bellucci: He’s so homely he almost has to overact to fill a larger-than-life role like this.

  5. Male Stars Great 4.0
  6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5
  7. Female Costars Good 3.0
  8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5
  10. Film
    Great 4.0

    The plot’s little more than a collection of clichés and coincidences: An apparent ex-special ops agent happens to be sitting at a random bus stop when the henchmen of a brutal crime lord show up looking to execute a pregnant woman who’s carrying the baby of a powerful politician who’s locked in a death match with disease and a gun manufacturer. Got that? No. Does it matter? No.

    What matters are the action set pieces this scaffolding of plot supports and the bon mots its characters utter. The former are extraordinary: fun and silly, inventive and enjoyably over-the-top. The latter are suitably dry, never more than when Clive Owen’s avenging hero declares “I’m a British nanny, and I’m dangerous.”

    Bottom Line: Shoot ’Em Up joins Wanted in the Action Porn pantheon.

  11. Direction Great 4.0
  12. Play Great 4.0
  13. Music Very Good 3.5
  14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
  15. Content
  16. Edge
    Sordid 3.2

    Gratuitous edginess packaged in male power fantasies is this movie’s raison d’être. If that’s not your idea of entertainment, stay far away.

  17. Sex Erotic 2.7
  18. Violence Brutal 2.8
  19. Rudeness Nasty 4.0
  21. Reality
    Surreal 2.3

    80 stuntmen, 10 stunt coordinator types, and 14 3D animators: yet no aliens or mutants are in sight, just humans operating as flesh and blood avatars. There’s a word for this sort of thing: Surreal.

    All of this is in good fun, but the one cliché that rankles is the oldest one in the action movie book: The bad guys can’t shoot straight. Vastly outnumbering the good guys and with enough firepower to take down Baghdad, their fusillades are always just a bit off the mark. How conviennniennnt.

  22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.9
  23. Biological Surreal 2.7
  24. Physical Surreal 3.0

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Sep 10, 2009 4:16AM
kukuruza

Thanks for such information. It was interesting to esteem.
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http://www.watch-movies-links.net
Jul 26, 2009 10:18PM
Wick

Had a choice of several movies. I’m Not There, much looking forward to watching but at nearly 2.5 hours it’s too long to start at just this side of midnight. A few Bond pictures, but only one with Connery. So I continued the hunt. What’s this? Now on Cinemax, “Shoot ’Em Up”. So checked out WikPik on it. Seven reviews totaling 45 Trust Points. The Rub in a long ago review HATED it. Gave it a full gray Awful. More encouragingly and easier to trust was the combination of Modern Marvel and SpaceGhost who gave it Good + and Great + respectively. Geek came in with the Ghost at just this side of a full five.

So I watched it, enjoying it immensely. I’m polishing up my review now, but wanted to highlight some of the fun commentary that led me to watch it:

Visuals – Great 4.5
Visually this movie is breathtaking. This is a crisp joyride of an action movie to watch. As fast as it moves, it never feels like it’s too choppy or blurry. The special effects are not seamless but showcase perfectly what needs to be there. Obviously this movie was made for less money than a lot of movies of this genre, and that shows. But for all its worth, it is still fantastic to view. – Modern Marvel

Reality – Fantasy 4.3

This movie does not base itself in the boundaries of reality, and it never claims to. People in this movie overcome physical obstacles that are impossible, the stated umbilical cord scene is completely crazy, the skydiving scene isn’t based in reality at all, and many more scenes will leave you scratching your head but simply shrugging and saying “oh well, it’s a whole lot of fun”. This is the kind of movie that never wanted to be a realistic, gritty action movie. Instead, it opted for “fantasy over-the-top action movie” and it succeeds. – Modern Marvel

Overall Great 4.5

This movie was freakin great. It was completely over the top in every way. The story, the action, the characters – it was all so much damn fun. Clive Owen is one of my favorites and he absolutely delivers in this one as Mr. Smith. Monica Bellucci can’t help but be gorgeous in everything she does and Paul Giamatti is one of the best character actors out there. From the first scene of the movie (an infant delivery in the middle of a gunfight) you know this movie is gonna be anything but grounded. Its a celebration of every action/tough guy/conspiracy movie ever made and what better way to do it than by making it bigger than life and shoving it in your face? Best way to describe it? The ultimate guy version of an Elmer Fudd/Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes episode. – SpaceGhost

Female Stars Perfect 5.0

Monica Bellucci is always fantastic and this role is perfect for her. She is what every guy wants – a lady in the streets and a freak in the bed. She stands up to Owen and holds her own in every scene offering a great balance to the love interest. – SpaceGhost

Edge – Crude 3.7

Plenty of language and violence. And what guy movie would be complete without a memorable sex scene? Its got it all. Never done just because, though, it all has its place in this heightened guy movie reality. – SpaceGhost