It's tough to find a lable that's sticky enough for the bloody mess which Shoot 'Em Up is but I found it thoughtful in a way that is hard to describe. Perhaps 'Reservoir Dogs Go to Washington and Bump Into Mr. Smith on the Way' ? It's like trying to put 10 pounds of bizarre into a 5 pound sack. But hey, the news just yesterday said that the guy from the Nu Metal band Korn found God a couple of years ago and started over again so maybe even though truth is stranger than fiction the gap is closing. When the smoke clears it's a nice family values story. When is the sequel?

SPOILERS

Gave this my money this weekend. Owen, Giamatti and Belluci were too much of a draw.

I found myself saluting the producers who could attract Owen and Giamatti to this script. They’ve got major reputations, and one of them has an Oscar nomination (surprise: Owen, not Giamatti!) As for Belluci ...well, she probably came easy. She doesn’t seem to work much in American movies.

The movie has wall-to-wall non-stop action. The script is beneath everybody. I suppose the money was good, but not THAT good. This isn’t a big studio production. I figure Owen said “yes” because he saw it as another shot at “Sin City” disgusting-hip, with a teenage male draw. (Wrong: it only opened at 6 mil.) Giamatti probably said yes because he was getting the opportunity to play one of those ultra-evil bad guys that have been with us ever since Scorpio killed priests and kids and hot chicks in “Dirty Harry.” Belluci probably said yes because – well, she doesn’t work much in American movies.

I wonder why Clive Owen didn’t get James Bond. I’m sure he had a shot at the part. I’m guessing his management nixed it: Clive was Oscar-worthy (“Closer”) and didn’t want to commit to multiple Bonds. Next thing Clive knows, Gerald Butler’s hittin’ it in “300,” Daniel Craig’s killing in Bond, and Clive’s not the only tough guy on the street.

We get to see “Clive do Bond” in one sequence in “Shoot ‘Em Up” – a mid-air skydiving shootout (watch out for that helicopter below!) that brings back the glory days of Roger Moore and Jaws (the man, not the shark.) Owen would have been a pretty good JB on the evidence.

The rest of the time the action is “Grindhouse”- bloody, however; far more ultra-violent than Bond, if patently ridiculous (who knew the true lethal mass and density of the lowly carrot?). Owen earns his noir tough guy pay, holds the screen at all times, but he’s so much better than the script it rather hurts.

Its almost worth it to see Monica Belluci at the end, dressed up perkily in a brothel-fantasy diner waitress’ outfit, pretty in pink with her sizable breasts all up in the air. But the poor dear can’t act in English. Ah, who cares. She seems to be channeling Claudia Cardinale. I’d love her in a remake of “The Professionals,” but where are we gonna find Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster nowadays? (Bulletin: Owen and Belluci making peekaboo-nude-love even as he shoots bad guys seems eminently, perfectly RIGHT. Matt Damon or Jennifer Aniston would not have worked here. Clive and Monica are a matched strapping physical pair.)

Poor Paul Giamatti comes off worst. Having carefully developed personas both romantic (“Sideways”) and lovably losing (“American Splendor,” “Cinderella Man”) he here screws up in two major ways: (1) Playing a truly creepy villain (a borderline necrophiliac who tortures Belluci for far too long and cheers when his car runs over a baby –don’t worry, its fake); (2) Allowing himself to be photographed so that every bad feature on his face is emphasized, continually. He gets one dubious line – “F—me sideways!” and one line that helps sink the whole picture. Seeing that the baby he ran over was a fake, Giamatti yells, "That's SICK!" Nudge in the ribs, yuk,yuk.

Well, the whole movie's kinda sick, what with the baby being mixed in with blow jobs and body parts, Belluci wet-nursing a grown man, and Peckinpah-perforated henchmen piling up by the score. We're in Kill Bill/Sin City/Grindhouse land, but the writer-director is an amateur. This reveals itself in the "plot" which hinges on the baddies stopping a Presidential candidate whose "gun control platform is sweeping the nation." In 2008? In a movie that worships the gun? (I know they're being ironic; but if so, that's really bad taste.)

So this is a bad movie. But the action is non-stop and it is fun to watch the three stars even in their embarrassed state. I'll see the Western next week. Or maybe Viggo Cronenberg's next highbrow bloodbath. Or that Jodie Foster Death Wish remake (after the Kevin Bacon Death Wish remake.)

Fall is when things die.

lucabrasi:

...Well, the whole movie's kinda sick, what with the baby being mixed in with blow jobs and body parts, Belluci wet-nursing a grown man, and Peckinpah-perforated henchmen piling up by the score...So this is a bad movie. But the action is non-stop and it is fun to watch the three stars even in their embarrassed state. I'll see the Western next week. Or maybe Viggo Cronenberg's next highbrow bloodbath. Or that Jodie Foster Death Wish remake (after the Kevin Bacon Death Wish remake.)

Fall is when things die.

I hope you didn't wait till the fall to see movies with death among the credits. If you missed Nice Bombs this summer it would be sad. Not much action but lots of reality. Truly sick.