The “Break it Down” Blog

Summary [7 out of 10]

Shoot ‘Em Up is a ridiculously paced, non-stop action movie that is a collection of surprisingly cohesive scenes that provide excuses for the director to realize constant over-the-top action sequences that are a blast to watch ending with a great cheesy one-liner from the main character.

Setup

If you plan on watching this movie, you have to do the following things:

• Take your “serious hat” and throw it out the window
• Not be an anti-NRA, anti-gun lobbyist… this entire movie is basically a gun advertisement of awesomeness
• Appreciate cheesy lines that are delivered for the sole purpose of being super-cheesy kick backs to older movies good guys that are just too badass to say anything else
• Are not a feminism activist (this movie is definitely a guy movie)

Once you have done those things, you can watch this movie.

If you go into this movie wanting some serious characters, serious action or serious drama, you will be disappointed or end up saying things like “oh that’s such bullshit” as the main character runs by 11 bad guys firing bullets at him then sliding along the floor on a grease pile.

You might also want to get checked for Douche-i-tosis if you are unable to let go and just enjoy this movie… it’s a pretty serious disease.

Story

The actual premise of the movie is a bit over the top, but not presented right away to the viewer, so I won’t dive into it in detail to minimize spoilers, after all, if you are watching this movie for story and character development I have a beautiful bridge through the middle of Arizona I want to sell you.

The movie opens with Clive Owen, the main character “Smith”, being a badass waiting on a bus bench waiting for the bus eating a carrot (his “thing” this entire movie is to eat carrots when he’s doing something badass). I was actually surprised how well Owen pulled off “The Badass” role… I dug it.

While he’s sitting on the bench some pregnant lady in a smock goes running buy as a guy comes barreling down the street behind her in a car.

The bad guy goes after the girl with a gun and Smith gets involved… cause he’s a badass and that’s what badasses do.

Smith saves the girl who is pregnant by killing that 1 guy, but then like 16 other guys in true “bad guys entering en-mob” fashion come pouring in the other side of the room, then take up positions and promptly get dispatched by Smith as he delivers the baby. There are some great stunts in this opening scene that pretty much continue through out the movie.

NOTE: There is a part of how he delivers the baby is so awesome and manly I don’t want to ruin it, but basically sets up the tone of the entire movie once he does it… it’s the moment where you realize this movie is all about being a badass and class can go fuck itself

Anyway the lady gets shot in the head on the way out of the building while they are trying to escape (with a boob hanging out, which is something I want to comment on later) and Smith is pursued by the attackers who are lead by the ingenious Paul Giamatti, as Hertz. Again, Hertz was perfect… he was a total douche bag, really smart, calm, animated and dirty… in a douche-baggy way. Just did a great job with the part.

Smith keeps trying to get rid of the baby and Hertz keeps coming after the baby trying to kill it. Once Smith realizes that Hertz is trying to kill the baby, he takes it back under his wing and takes it to the only lady (I guess) he knows that he thinks can take care of it; this is where Monnica Belluci as Donna comes in.

More on this later, but I actually did not like Belluci in this role… if you loved her in Matrix because she has yam-yams the size of Cincinnati I doubt you’ll like her here. The reason she was so awesome in Matrix is because she was so reserved and elegant, that doesn’t translate well to her role in this movie as a street-wise hooker… I would have preferred a younger, spunkier personality that meshed better with Owen and not have such a hard time with English.

Donna is a hooker that works at a bordello that specializes in fantasies I guess because everyone there is into kinky role playing and what not. Smith gives her the baby to feed because she is lactating and I guess her customers are into that (yea… that boner you were getting just died, didn’t it?)

Anyway Hertz finds them together and the remainder of the movie is Hertz chasing them both down trying to kill the baby as they figure out why the baby is so important and who Hertz is in the first place and why he is chasing them. I can’t talk more about the story without ruining bits so I’ll just say it’s over-the-top just like the movie, but entertaining enough to act as a platter for the non-stop action that takes place.

Action, Gore & Sex

Everything in this movie is suppose to be over the top… not just normal over the top like Arnold in Predator… I mean comic-book-over-the-top, and it never tries to shy away from that which is what made it a likable movie. The movie never pretends to be serious or realistic, it just goes nuts with the stunts and gun play and lets you sit back and enjoy it.

I was surprised a bit at how average the gore in the movie was. About 90% typical gun shot wounds with about 10% “oh nice!” gun shot wounds… but given the premise I was expecting a bit more dismemberment and just crazy fire-power type of wounds… unfortunately not so.

One thing I really liked, besides some of the creativity with the action scenes that I was pretty consistently happy and surprised with… was the consistency with which Smith delivered corny one-liners after he was done killing everyone. Each major action scene ended with him saying something awesome like… “Don’t forget to eat your vegetables” or… “That’s why you don’t smoke”… in a normal movie the cheese would have blinded you, but given that is the whole point of this movie, it was pretty awesome.

Now… with every good R-Rated action movie, especially one like this, it seems you would have a sufficient amount of sex or nudity to go along with it… unfortunately I can’t say there really was.

There is the boner-destroying encounter with Belluci in the bordello where she is nursing a grown man as part of her job, then the only boob (singular) you see in the movie is that of a dead lady that had the baby at the beginning that is riding around in Hertz’s car with a gunshot wound in her head… hardly sexy as far as action movies and gratuitous nudity go.

There is also this undertone of “this is a man’s movie, show me your boobs” but there just aren’t any boobs being shown in response to this declaration. It’s more of a male-dominate vibe the movie puts off, and as the viewer you are like “Ok I can dig this” and then you sort of wait there, with your hands out, waiting for boobtacularness to be poured into them, and it isn’t. We aren’t talking soft-core porn here, but the way the movie is setup and presented you expect it. Like in the 80s Stephen Segal movies, when he would walk into a night club and you’d see topless women dancing around… you expected that because it’s a seedy joint and it’s a Segal flick… now imagine that same movie, but Stephen Segal walks into a Barnes & Nobel… yea, exactly.

I’d say there is more nudity in the 80s Nerds movies to be honest.

Special Effects, Sound, etc.

As seems to be the theme with movies in the last 5 years, gore is being done more and more with CG. Makeup artists are getting the hack in lieu of some good CG blood, splatter or gaping hole. The first movie I noticed this in because it was used in like every scene and actually pretty well was The Devil’s Rejects, the gore in Shoot ‘Em Up is maybe a bit more polished, but you can still tell it’s CG and not the old-school fare.

The sound effects in this movie are almost entirely gun shots… I had no complaints but I also wasn’t dazzled by any of it either. I felt Hertz’s Desert Eagle .50 sounded underpowered because it sounded like a normal gun, as opposed to a hand cannon… if you want the sound that it should have had… refer to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc when Indie fires his gun in the bar at the beginning… it sounds like a frigging cannon.

Conclusion [7 out of 10]

Overall this movie was certainly entertaining, very creative in parts and always satisfying with how he solved his “problems” (read: killed everyone in any given scene).

The one liners were great and overall the gore level was about average for a movie like this. There is one stunt in the movie near the end in the car chase scene that I just loved… it was so ridiculously awesome, bravo to whoever thought of that one (you know who you are).

Unfortunately, I felt like Belluci was mis-cast because she has a hard time with English and delivering her lines felt forced and completely devoid of emotion. I also didn’t get that much chemistry between the two characters.

The portions of the story that tried to integrate the baby were neither here nor there… I could have really given two shits about the baby and it’s well being in a movie like this with characters like these involved. I am not really docking the movie for this though, just saying it’s not a story element I felt connected with.

Areas of Improvement

As with all the reviews, we have to be fair and provide detailed suggestions on what we though could be improved to justify our rating:

• Younger/English-speaking-native love interest. Belluci is great, this was just the wrong role for her. I think someone with more street smarts and “punk” to them than the elegant/reserved Belluci.
• A bit more creative killing with non-gun items. I really wouldn’t have minded if he would have chopped off some arms, heads, etc. with axes or machines or something. Every single person died in the movie from a gun, but I realize that was probably the point of the movie (hence the name). So I’m not docking for this, just noting it.
• Better chemistry between main characters… I think this ties into the first point.
• The movie was sorely lacking any sort of awesome reload sequence… like throwing the clip up in the air and catching it in the gun or something crazy like that. I was entirely expecting some over-the-top reloading sequences but instead the characters just never ran out of bullets… except once I think.
• More glorification of the guns. This sounds odd in this movie, but since the whole point was guns… I thought a bit more glorification of the guns could have been included… like either more guns, exotic models of guns, better sound work for the guns or insane impact physics (like using the Desert Eagle and blowing a guys arm off or something).
• 1 more car scene… the one that was there was pretty good with an awesome ending stunt, but a movie like this seems like it needs at least 1 more exotic car chase or something…
• Reveal Smith’s background to be more of a badass winner versus the badass looser he was (poor)… you sort of hope he ends up being some sort of James Bond, and you find out more about him, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still poor as piss… sort of a let down.