Movie Review: Shoot Em Up

Many people viewed Shoot Em Upwith the wrong state of mind, expecting it to be a straight up action movie. Instead they got a carrot chomping Clive Owen blasting through loads of slapstick comedy.

Shoot Em Up was written and directed by Michael Davis and is about a man named Mr. Smith who delivers a woman's baby during a shootout, and is then called upon to protect the newborn from the army of gunmen. Clive Owen is Mr. Smith, Paul Giamatti is the villain, and Monica Bellucci is the lactating hooker love interest.
Marketing confusion aside for some folks, I think in general most people "got it" and critically blasted the film accordingly. This movie tends to fall in the middle ground of opinion in the ratings spectrum based off of numerical internet calculation and I agree that that is what sort of film it is. The action in the movie is literally non-stop, well fairly literally. Smith not only delivers a baby, but does quite a few other various tasks such as have sex during shoot outs. The comedy mixed in is over the top silly, such as shooting a merry go round over and over again to keep it spinning since the baby is laying on it and the bad guys are trying to shoot it with a sniper rifle. It wasn't really funny, but the horrible jokes actually were still watch-able in a "I can't believe how dumb this is." sort of way.

The acting is on par I guess with being an action movie parody, with Clive Owen not really needing to "act" too much. Paul Giamatti is the most evil of villains and great. The story itself becomes a bit muddled with what could be interpreted as political commentary, but one is constantly reminded not to take things too seriously and bad dialog and scenes can be pawned off as B movie style content that was purposely kept bad. Expect the plot and twists to be corny, almost sci-fi, unrealistic overall, but yes that works for what this is.

If you are a fan of unrealistic, but high octane action and cartoon value silly comedy: then this film might be perfect for you; as long as you are an adult. The subject matter is actually quite dark in certain places and with sexual references, including Giamatti being preoccupied with staring at a dead woman's boobs.

Personally I preferred the over the top style of the movie Crank in comparison to this film Shoot Em Up. However, Shoot Em Up is an okay rental choice, but won't ever rise above mediocre in film history standings.