Shoot 'Em Up Hits and Misses ...but Mostly Misses

You probably remember Clive Owen's last movie, Children of Men. You know, the one where he runs around with the baby and saves the world and whatnot. Now imagine that, except as an ultraviolent, live action version of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and you've got Shoot 'Em Up pretty much pegged down.

This movie, while being completely devoid of any kind of reasonable plot, is currently being quite well received as "just a great time at the movies," "fun for the action," etc. And I have to say, the quality of the film is very high. The stunts are great, one-liners well delivered, and the credit sequences just fantastic. But there are just a few things I can't get over with this film.

First of all, it's an obvious spoof of Quentin Tarantino's movies, from the music, to the particularly bloody action, to the blatant homages to B movie genres. And it's not like I have anything against spoofs...it's just that by their very nature most of Tartantino's movies are gentle spoofs of B movie genre films themselves. So Shoot 'Em Up becomes a spoof of a spoof. This weakens it just a bit in my mind. Also, the writers recycled jokes. One-liners are funny because they're delivered with impeccable timing in that perfect one moment. Hearing a one-liner delivered more than once in the same movie is just lame.

To make matters worse, in this movie called Shoot 'Em Up, there's a not-subtle-at-all anti-gun message. One minute you're in the theatre just loving the gratuitous gun fights, and then in the very same space of time you're slapped in the face with "you should not be enjoying this" propaganda. All while the film revels in its own violence. This confounded me as I watched.

Yes, it's a pretty cool action movie for a matinée or slow Saturday night. There are moments of almost-greatness. But it suffers from too many hypocrisy laden, used-up jokes to be very effective even as a senseless popcorn flick, much less a pointed satire. C+