Shoot 'Em Up

Clive Owen: Extreme Babysitter

By Matt Pais

September 7, 2007

 
Critic's Rating:
1 1/2

Shoot 'Em Up
Clive Owen in "Shoot 'Em Up" (Credit: Alan Markfield/New Line)
Photos:
Shoot 'Em Up Shoot 'Em Up Shoot 'Em Up Shoot 'Em Up
Shoot 'Em Up
Running time:
87 minutes
Rated:
R
Cast:
Clive Owen -
Mr. Smith
Paul Giamatti -
Mr. Hertz
Monica Bellucci -
DQ
Daniel Pilon -
Senator Rutledge
Sidney Mende-Gibson -
Baby Oliver
See full cast
Director:
Michael Davis
Genre:
Action
Official Movie Web Site:
http://www.shootemupmovie.com/
Movie Trailer:
Overall User Rating:
3 (2 ratings)
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Rough and rugged Mr. Smith (Clive Owen, cool as a government-trained cucumber) looks after a baby and shoots the-population-of-Rhode-Island's worth of bad guys. This upsets Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti) and his henchmen who want the child dead, and somehow—take a deep breath before reading on—bone marrow transplants, politics and the second amendment also play a role.

Big question: Is "Shoot 'Em Up" as exciting as that other Owen-protecting-a-child movie, last year's brilliant "Children of Men"?

Skip it: Firing off more bullets than the entire James Bond franchise, "Shoot 'Em Up" is like porn for NRA members, getting off on the sound of gunfire, a lot of aggression towards women and bad one-liners like "Eat your vegetables" as Owen offs someone with a carrot. Stylish but too mean-spirited to achieve the desired tongue-in-cheek quality, "Shoot 'Em Up" seems in pursuit of being the ultimate "guy movie," but fans of this sort of glamorized killing spree aren't the kind of guy that most guys want to be.

Catch it: If you also loved the angry, gratuitous and misogynistic "Running Scared." "Shoot 'Em Up" is as brutish and hateful, just made better and without Paul Walker. (Yes, we know that's redundant.)

Bottom line: Bet you never thought you'd see an action hero shoot off an umbilical cord, clean a gun on a baby changing table or blow away a handful of goons while having sex with a hooker (Monica Bellucci). Of course, keep in mind that you didn't think a movie with Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti could be as repulsive as "Shoot 'Em Up" either.

Bonus: Looking to make your girlfriend break up with you? Just adopt any of the wisdom from "Shoot 'Em Up," like Hertz stating that, "Violence is one of the most fun things to watch"; the villain explaining that guns are better than wives because you can put silencers on guns; and Smith's one-liner, "F*** you, you f***in' f***ers."

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