Hey, Joe Carnahan, you know that movie you directed that came out in 2007? The one that seemed to promise balls-to-the-wall guns blazing action with hordes of hitmen blowing each other to hell for two hours? Y'know, Smokin' Aces? Well, I'm sure you don't need me to remind you that it sucked, and the few inspired action setpieces were spread extremely thin across ninety minutes of convoluted, pointless plot machinations and ludicriously extraneous character development. It's too bad you couldn't taken notes on the other action film released in '07 with an apostrophe in the title.
Yes, Shoot 'Em Up is everything Smokin' Aces tried and failed miserably to accomplish: namely, an action film that embraces everything that is ridiculous, awesome, and ridiculously awesome about action films, and cranks the whole mess up to eleven. Some have complained that all the BANG BANG BANG of this movie grows monotonous, but I disagree. Director Mark Davis does a great job of setting up a jaw-dropping piece of ballistic slapstick, then topping it in the next scene. It certainly doesn't hurt that Clive Owen is in his element as the hyper-efficient but cranky hero and Paul Giammatti's glorious scenery chewing makes a strong case that he should play the heavy in every single action film made from this point. Shoot 'Em Up is one of those strange hybrid films that seeks to both parody action tropes and glory in them. In at least one respect, it's more successful at this than another film of this type, Hot Fuzz. Now, in total, Hot Fuzz is a vastly superior film than Shoot 'Em Up, but for all of Hot Fuzz's brilliance, there really wasn't much actual action ass-kicking until the end. Shoot 'Em Up is essentially one long, escalatingly cartoonish gunfight, in which every death is rendered cool by the sheer inventiveness of the death, and the accompanying silliness.
One other note: just as CGI creatues are still too fakey to carry a film, CGI blood jets just aren't ready for prime time. Every film I've seen that features CGI blood is the lesser for it: as soon as that weirdly dark, pixel-rich splash hits the screen, the viewer is transported from a richly detailed cinematic realm to Castle Wolfenstein.
Score: 7.8
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