Shoot Em Up (Michael Davis, 2007)

Shoot Em Up is the latest in a recent string of high-energy, bloody-to-the-point-of-ridiculous action movies (Smokin Aces being my favorite of this genre), and it does no disappoint. Do you like a lot of people getting shot/killed in amazing/ridiculous ways? Do you like Clive Owen? Do you like Clive Owen having sex with Monica Bellucci? If you said "YES!" to any of those questions, you're my kind of movie-goer, and you'll love this one. Owen plays Mr. Smith, a mysterious bum who sees a pregnant woman running down the street from a man with a gun. He follows them in order to save her, and lo and behold, he's an incredible gunsmith and all-around fighter. He delivers the baby (and cuts the umbilical cord by shooting it) but fails to save the mother, so he takes the baby (dubbed Oliver, because Olive Twist is one of the things Mr. Smith doesn't hate) to a lactation-fetish prostitute (Bellucci) who feeds the child and eventually joins Smith on the run from Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti, in a surprisingly evil and hilarious turn), who has an army of thugs who want the baby dead. There is not a span of three minutes in the film where someone isn't shot, I think, and by the end of the film, writer-director Michael Davis has come up with the most outrageous, but still immensely entertaining, ways to kill someone, including, but not limited to, a gunfight in the air. The three main players are all very well-cast and relish their roles. Owen, as others have pointed out, seems to be playing an extension of his character from Children of Men, in that they are both world-weary men who have to save a baby. But this character is far darker and less world savior than the other film, and much funnier too. This movie had my jaw dropped almost the whole time, and I don't think you can find a much more entertaining 90 minutes in the theater this year. 9/10

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