"Shoot'em Up" (Movie) review (without spoilers)

[Zen21Tao]

Movie Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlx4n_ibNZE&mode=related&search=

Official Movie Website:
http://www.shootemupmovie.com/

I saw Shoot'em Up tonight and have to say that I found it a great movie. The actions scenes, especially the gun play, are far fetched. However, the movie is marketed as a far fetched comedy so this is totally to be expected. There is also an impressive body count and selection of weapons used. And, perhaps most importantly, it presents a very pro-gun message, has very pro-second amendment statements all through out the movie, and includes a nice brief gun safety tutorial. In short, this movie was excellent and I highly recommend it.

 

[Sharps-shooter]

How can you go wrong with a movie called shoot em up? YEE HAW!

It seems like more people are starting to come out with movies that are more pro-gun again. I imagine that there's this generation that saw Kennedy killed, Ford attempted upon, and then finally Reagan shot and almost killed, and they wanted to try this idea of gun control out. The reagan assasination attempt really looks like the turning point to me, as I look back over it in my mind. The gun control experiment reached its peak in the 1990's and now its declining. Or so i hope. And this is reflected in the media and movies of the years in question.

 

[Texshooter]

Giamatti is a fine actor.

Don't know his 2nd amendment persuasions, but a fine actor.

Looking forward to seeing it Sunday.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Lucky]

Newspaper review I read, from a Canadian newspaper, specifically said that in the second half it became preachy and 'anti-gun'! If I hadn't read your review I'd never have considered seeing it.

 

[nwilliams]

I plan on seeing it on this weekend, been waiting for this one to come out.

 

[Srigs]

I'll be going with a buddy!

 

[Zen21Tao]

Newspaper review I read, from a Canadian newspaper, specifically said that in the second half it became preachy and 'anti-gun'!

I know why they are saying this.

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Warning: semi spoilers below. Some, but not much revealed.

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There is a couple lines that tries to separate gun owners from "gun nuts" by criticizing the latter saying something about "full auto machine guns for duck hunting."


However, there are some things to keep in mind when seeing this scene. The entire movie had been pro-gun up to this point and when it comes to Hollywood and gun rights acceptance, we have to take small steps. This line makes it harder for Hollywood elitists to attack the film as being 'extreme.'


(Spoiler....) One of these characters is a gun manufacturer. This also makes it hard for Hollywood elitists to demonize this movie as being a "tool for the gun industry/gun makers."


Also, it is the bad guys that are saying this. So the movie is demonstrating the real life hypocrisy of the bad guys that we need guns to protect us from, being big anti-gun characters.

Ultimately, I think this is also a brilliant attempt to pass on pro-gun messages (gun safety, need for personal protection, gun ownership as a "right", etc.) under a pro-gun-control disguise.

Of course, I may be wrong. This whole movie may have been a full-blown attempt to use "tongue in cheek humor" to cast gun owners in a negative light, but I just didn't get this from the film. So if this was does have an anti-gun message, I think it completely misses the mark.

 

[disneyd]

I saw the movie last night. I wouldn't recommend it.

The first 3/4 is basically just the typical Hollywood gun battle scene on steroids. Its ridiculous, but it's supposed to be that way. I wouldn't call it pro or anti... just a bunch of shooting.

The last 1/4 is, in my opinion, very anti-gun. The gun manufacturing industry, pro gun politicians, and gun owners are portrayed in a very negative light. It also takes jabs at the anti-gun politicians for wussing out and not properly banning all guns. The hero, at the end, purposefully does something because he wants to guarantee that lots of future anti-gun legislation will be passed. I think the hero's motto could be, "I hate guns but I'm going to use them to kill all the bad people with guns, then us good guys can throw all ours away". The hero also quotes something along the lines of, "Yeah, we need full auto uzis to go hunt Bambi with."

I think the director is basically laughing it up right now because he's managed to make an anti-gun movie in a very subliminal / reverse-psychology way.

Anyway, that's my .02, I'm looking forward to seeing 3:10 to Yuma later this weekend and expect it to be about a billion times better.

 

[cruze7]

I would agree. Skip it. I was sorry I wasted $8 bucks and 2 hours on it.

 

[cbsbyte]

I read an interview with the actors who describe the movie as a wild take on the gun shooting in movies to make a point. It satire on the American gun culture. It has a strong anti-violence, and anti-gun messages. Nope I am not going to see it.

http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/ProgrammeFeature.aspx?id=41&FeatureID=363

http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/smith-one-shoot-1839029-through-davis

 

[PaulW]

try this.

Go to http://www.shootemupmovie.com/ and then click on "view age restricted...". It will ask you to enter your name, age and zip code. They then verify against a database that is populated with info from state DMV's.

Ugh.

 

[damien]

I would say the movie is extremely anti-gun. This is very obvious in the last half of the film. But the movie fails to sell that message because the main good guy solves his problems almost exclusively by using a gun (well, a few times with a carrot too.) He gives his lactating lady pal a gun to protect herself. The only argument the movie could make under these circumstances would be "if gun control could eliminate all guns, the good guy wouldn't need one because the bad guy wouldn't have one - carrots would reign supreme!" Even that argument would fail because many of the bad guys are government men and they would continue to have guns, even in a strict gun control climate.

But I overanalyze the movie. The movie defies analysis. It is live action cartoon that emphasizes gunplay, and not in very realistic way. The main hero gets about 20 shots out of a SIG 232 in the beginning of the movie without reloading. A Beretta has a failure to fire on him because he gets it wet momentarily. He holds it under a hand dryer to dry it off enough so it can fire again. I guess the writer/director thinks the powder in modern shells can get wet. The protagonist later dispatches someone (I will not say who) by using 9mm shells that he simply holds in a fire with his hands while they are outside of the gun - the bullets still have 100's of ft/lbs of energy from simply cooking off.

Obviously the movie is a cartoon. It's all BS. But I thought it was fun to watch. If you have seen The Big Hit, it is similar in the way that it is preposterous. But, if you know that it is more a satire of an action movie than an actual action movie, it is fun to watch. For most, though, it might still rate as a DVD rental.

Oh, and this is a hard-R with some serious kinky sexual situations thrown in also. Not a family movie, even though it is paced like a Roadrunner cartoon.

 

[Drizzt]

Gun posters taken down
Nicola Dowling
8/ 9/2007

POSTERS promoting a violent gun film were put up in bus stop billboards across Manchester.

The posters, advertising a film called Shoot 'Em Up, showed an actor pointing an automatic pistol.

But they are being taken down after the M.E.N. contacted the billboard firm.

One of the posters even went up at a bus stop outside the Alexandra Park estate in Moss Side, where teenager Jessie James was shot dead a year ago tomorrow.

They also featured on bus stops in other areas of Manchester hit by gun crime.

The M.E.N. contacted bus stop company JC Decaux, who immediately agreed to have them removed and sent out workers to take them down.

The action followed complaints from readers and calls for the posters to be removed by Jessie's sister Rosie Reid, Patsy McKie from Mothers Against Violence and Manchester Central MP Tony Lloyd.

Rosie Reid said: "They are totally disrespectful.

Wrong

"They are wrong and shouldn't be there. They encourage impressionable youngsters at a time when gun crime is out of control."

Patsy McKie, whose son Dorie was shot dead in 1999, added: "They are very insensitive, especially when you take into account how violent the film is.

"I believe children learn from what they see and hear. If we don't do something about the glamorisation of violence, we are going to have anarchy."

Mr Lloyd said: "It is insensitive and in extremely bad taste."

A nurse who spotted one of the posters on her way to work added: "I think it's an ugly image and very distasteful.

"If I was the mother of a gun crime victim, I would be horrified - I wanted to go and paint over it and get rid of it.

"It would be provocative anywhere, but nowhere more so than in an area where there are concerns about gun crime."

Shoot 'Em Up is an extremely violent film, with scenes of elaborate gunfights. In the opening scene, the lead character, played by British actor Clive Owen, kills an assassin by ramming a carrot into his skull. Shortly afterwards, he delivers a woman's baby during a shoot-out, severing the umbilical cord with a bullet.

Owen also takes on an army of gunmen with a sub-machine gun - often fighting with the baby under his arm.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1015/1015831_gun_posters_taken_down.html

 

[damien]

M.E.N. is a news outlet? The were taken down after a news outlet called a billboard company? Is this news or is it a news company actually creating the news by injecting itself?

 

[Zen21Tao]

I think damien summed up perfectly, exactly what I was trying to say about this movie. If indeeed, it was meant to be an anti-gun movie, it actually fails miserably. In fact, in failing to produce an anti-gun message for anyone other than gun-grabbers that can skew anything to be anti-gun, it actually casts anti-gun in a somewhat realistic light.

The hero in this movie begins the film unarmed. So, if concealed carry wasn't legal in his city, he (the law abiding citizen) was the only one obeying the law. The first gun he comes by, he gets from the woman he is trying to save. When attacked, she pulls a gun to defend here life and the life of her baby. Without this gun, both her and baby would be dead right at the very beginning. Plus, we can't forget the "rules of gun safety" scene where he is teaching the baby gun safety. This shows the pro-gun sides respect for firearms and devotion to instilling gun safety to children.

There is a highly criticized scene early on where he shoots the baby's umbilical cord to "cut" it. This may be meant to be a crude slap at gun owners, but if anything this was done out of necessity and illustrates how a gun really is just a "tool." There he had nothing available to him to cut the umbilical cord, but he needed to do so to separate the woman and baby so they could run to safety. He improvised to save their lives.

Also, the only overtly anti-gun characters are the bad guys. Of course, while they themselves break the law and use guns to victimize others, they want their would be victims to be unarmed and helpless. Yes, its true, one of the bad guys is a gun manufacturer BUT he doesn't represent the controlling officer of a large top tier gun manufacturer. He is a small business owner that wants to make money any way he can, even if it means putting his desire to make money above his support for Second Amendment rights. Any industry is bound to have these kind of "bad apples", that doesn't make the entire industry this way.


And, lets not forget that they worked for the anti-gun senator. That's right, the anti-gun senator that wanted to ban guns to make society safer sent out armed criminal to assassinate a large number of women and babies. Think about it, the real "baby killers" in this film are the gun-control supporters. Not to mention, this imitates the real life elitist hypocrisy of gun-banning figures that want their perceived "importance" to shield them from the very laws and restrictions they support. They don't want us average law abiding citizens to have guns but they have no problem either having guns themselves or employing others that have guns, when it suits their needs and furthers their agenda.


As for the Senator's killing, I didn't see the hero doing this to get guns banned. I saw this as simply a slap in the face to the 'normal movie way' of handling such a situation. Usually a villain says to the good guy that, by killing him, he is making him a martyr and the hero almost always spares the bad guy because of this. In this case, the hero says this and the senator agrees thinking this is his way to stay alive. But, not in this movie.


Also, remember Paul Giamatti's character's almost necrophiliac scene? What better way to show anti-gun "perverse love" and use of death. He of course was also the only one to proclaim his love for violence. How novel, the gun toting criminal that loves violence and death is gun-control supporter.

And of course, let's not forget that the availability of firearms and the ability to use them, is the only thing that manages to save the "good guys."

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Again, this is just my interpretation of the movie.

 

[wheelgunslinger]

Sounds like Clive Owen (anyone see "sin city"?) and Paul Giamatti are about to get a taste of the ridiculous mouth foaming logical power of the anti's.
At some point, it will occur to them that perhaps the pro gun crowd is as misunderstood as they are, once they're crucified for a stupid movie.

Maybe this movie will do more good for the 2A cause.