Shoot 'Em Up

A man sits at a bus stop in a sleazy part of town, eating a carrot. A hysterical pregnant woman runs past him, followed by a man with a gun. The mysterious stranger follows the two of them into a warehouse, where he dispatches the man in a manner I've never before seen in cinema, and the woman goes into labor. Thugs dash into the warehouse, Nirvana's "Breed" starts playing on the soundtrack, and what happens for the next 84 minutes turns the gun-fu genre upside down.
Shoot 'Em Up is the film I've been waiting for all year. It was nice to see a movie so irreverent, so violent, so kickass, so much more dangerous than the crap like Pirates 3 that we've been force-fed virtually all summer long. The plot is simple, to the point where it makes The Bourne Ultimatum look like The Big Sleep. Mysterious Stranger (Clive Owen) comes into the possession of a baby born to the aforementioned pregnant women, who dies in labor. MS & baby are being pursued by sadistic hitman Hertz (a scenery-devouring Paul Giamatti), and MS enlists the aid of D.Q. (Monica Belluci), a hooker who specializes in lactating/baby fantasies to help him care for the child while he gets to the bottom of the mystery of the child.
Shoot 'Em Up is the first film I think I've ever seen where the plot served as some kind of uber-MacGuffin, and it works. There is a lot of stuff in this film that works, that almost shouldn't, or definitely wouldn't in lesser hands. First of all, the film is well-written and well-directed, with snappy dialogue and sight gags that the like of Tarantino should be PAYING ATTENTION TO, SO THEY CAN MAKE GOOD STUFF LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF BLOATED CRAP LIKE DEATHPROOF. Ahem. The actors also take a lot of credit. One would think that Clive Owen would shy away from roles like this, which would almost seem like a parody of his performance in Sin City, but he didn't, and good for him. Mr. Smith plays like Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name crossed with American Splendor writer Harvey Pekar, with a dash of Bugs Bunny thrown in for good measure. I feel that with this role, Owen has cemented his place as this generation's Humphrey Bogart. Monica Belluci holds her own with Owen competently, and Paul Giamatti owns the ridiculous and disgusting Hertz. The music in this film is also great, with AN ENTIRE SHOOTOUT set to Motorhead's "Ace Of Spades." AC/DC is also represented, and the score is an apropros mix of modern influences, with a hint of Morricone thrown in. But director Michael Davis has plenty of action sequences in which the impossible happens, and you find it 100% believable anyway. This is in contrast to "realistic" movies with absurd (not absurd enough?) set pieces (looking at you, Transporter 2....) that just don't work. Shoot 'Em Up works. It also works as a discourse on bad and annoying habits, via Owen's "Mr. Smith."
Did I talk about gunfights? This movie has the most insane gunfights I've ever seen. And yet, the language never seemed pervasive to me (think Scorcesee), and the violence never seemed excessive. It might sound to some people like SEU is just a send-up of films like Hard-Boiled or Die Hard.....and it is in some ways. Giamatti has more than one line of dialogue in the film where he says something that audiences have been thinking throughout countless action movies. This is not a dumb film. But SEU is also a love letter to those movies, and revels in the glorious excess of the action genre more successfully than any movie I've ever seen. There were a lot of critics that trashed the hell out of it......I think A.O. Scott of The New York Times called it a "worthless piece of garbage." Then again, I don't think that Davis made this film for genteel types like Scott.
Out of all the films I've reviewed for TMBC, I had the hardest time trying to rate this movie. I thought, and thought, and thought, and I couldn't find much fault with it. I guess they could have made the characters a little bit cooler, but maybe that would have been trying too hard. Shoot 'Em Up is perfect the way it is......or close to perfect. I give Shoot 'Em Up an unprecedented 21 out of 22 on the 22 scale.

Memorable Quotes:

Mr. Smith: I hate it when parents hit their children.
Woman in Museum: Let go of my arm!
Mr. Smith: Not until you stop hitting your kid.
Woman in Museum: I will discipline my child as I see fit.
Mr. Smith: How would you like it if I spank you?
[Smith spanks the mother]
Mr. Smith: See? It doesn't feel so good, does it?

Mr. Hertz: Does anyone know what a Jimmy Cagney love scene is? It's when Cagney lets the good guy live.
[lobby of henchmen laugh]
Mr. Hertz: [growing serious] And if that happens in this show, I will do a lot more than ask for my money back.

Mr. Smith: Do you know what I hate?
Baby's Mother: [in pain] No!
Mr. Smith: I hate these fourteen year old jack-holes wearing ponytails. That pony tail doesn't make you look hip, young, or cool.
[Smith shoots a ponytail henchmen in the head]

Mr. Hertz: Guns don't kill people! But they sure help.

Mr. Hertz: My god. Do we really suck or is this guy really that good?