Susan Granger’s review of “Shoot ‘Em Up” (New Line Cinema)
There’s something to be said for truth in advertising. Never have so many bullets been fired by so many men – for the sheer fun of it.
As enigmatic Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) sits on a bench, waiting for a bus and munching a big, crispy carrot, a pregnant woman, obviously in labor, runs past him, chased by a gunman with a car full of black-clad cohorts. Dashing to her defense, he polishes off her pursuers while delivering the baby, blasting the umbilical cord with a gunshot. Carrying the woman’s corpse – and the newborn – he escapes. While intending to find the infant a proper home, he’s perpetually followed by a really, really nasty bad guy (Paul Giamatti) – and an army of thugs. Along the way, glowering Mr. Smith recruits a lactating prostitute (beautiful Monica Belluci) whose kinky specialty is wet-nursing clients. As for a semi-coherent plot, it seems the powerful gun lobby is involved in a shadowy scheme to harvest bone marrow for an influential U.S. Senator running for President.
Satirically written and directed by Michael Davis (“Eight Days a Week”), it’s outrageously violent and intentionally trashy – at warp speed. With tongue firmly planted in cheek and a deadpan demeanor, Clive Owens (“Children of Men”) embodies “the angriest man in the world.” As the heinous villain/henpecked husband, Paul Giamatti (“The Nanny Diaries”) is reprehensible. “Do you know why a gun is better than a wife?” he asks one of his thugs. “You can put a silencer on a gun.”
For some, this perversity may be entertaining; for others (like me), it’s just inane. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Shoot ‘Em Up” is a silly, smarmy, shell-shocked 6, offering frenetic, absurdist, over-the-top violence – like a live-action cartoon.
