| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 09/18/2007 : 22:46:23
Shoot 'em Up
OK before I talk at all about the film I'm going to give you a trivia present and I betcha no one else will know this:
At one point in the film badguy Paul Giamatti points to the lactating prostitute who's guarding the newborn baby he's been chasing and he refers to her as "getting Cafe LaMaMa." Now, you know I was in the original LaMaMa Troupe and started the London LaMaMa, so I thought that's a funny thing for a badguy to say at such a moment. I mean who's going to even get that line? So I guessed someone in the film must have a LaMaMa connection. It wasn't writer/director Michael
Davis, but it WAS Giamatti who apparently appeared in a Sam Shepard play there after he graduated from Yale.
Now, back to the film. Well, I say film, but I suspect there's going to have to be a whole new word invented for what this is. Definitely post-modern and not to be taken seriously, but delivering all the punch implied by the title.
So let me ask you some questions:
1. There you are, sitting on a bench looking like shit gone cold and a pregnant woman hobbles by clearly in pain like maybe she's about to give birth, but do you help her, no you do not, and then some badguys chase her and they have guns but do you help her, no you do not, and then the woman disappears and the guys disappear after her and then you hear a shot. Do you help her then?
2. Is a carrot
A] a vegetable?
B] a lethal weapon?
C] all of the above?
3. When is a good time to have a gun-fight?
A] While a baby is being born?
B] While you are fucking?
C] While you are free-falling from an airplane?
D] All of the above?
4. You have just delivered a baby and its mommy is no longer able to care for it, do you
A] Take it to a hospital?
B] Take it to a police station?
C] Leave it on the doorstep of an orphanage?
D] Take it to a lactating hooker who caters for a clientele that likes to dress in nappies/diapers and suckle?
A film like this can only work because the action is so relentless and so insistent that you cannot stop to work anything out, even when you are being told outright the raison d'etre of any character and why they must be eliminated from the planet with such mythical determination that Homer would be proud. It can only work if the actors perform with a self-referential irony that only comes from an understanding of character that makes up for the lack of any inherent in the script. Suffice it to say that the trio of Clive Owen [so, you didn't cast me as Bond, well, your loss, buddy!], Monica Bellucci [so, I was voted most beautiful woman in the world, it doesn't mean I'm not a sensitive and intelligent hooker with a heart of gold and get your slimy hands off of me unless I say so, buddy!], and Paul Giamatti [so, you thought I'd pushed myself to the limit of quirky characters but I bet you never thought I could take quirky over the fucking edge, buddy!] all meet the challenge.
You simply cannot see this movie if you have a low violence threshold. But if you have an appetite for cinema-folk as bullet fodder and you have no interest whatsoever in the story thread that unravels in between shots, well this is the film for you.
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| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Animal Mutha |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 22:43:34
I can't agree more. This film has been compared to Crank. I really liked Crank (please don't hold that against me), because it does exactly what it says on the tin. What it had, that Shoot'em up didn't, was some creativity when it came to dealing with action and energy. Shoot 'Em Up just ended up becoming repetitive, because during each action sequence it never mixed it up enough (nowhere more so than in the sky diving sequence). I too went into this film really wanting to like it, but left feeling distinctly empty inside. |
| benj clews |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 22:24:11
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I saw this tonight and I found it just awesome. The plot is indeed flimsy in the extreme, but I while I would normally mind that I didn't at all - though it wouldn't have hurt what plot there is to be not so silly. But Clive Owen is great and the gunfight sequences (especially the way that Owen moves through and otherwise manipulates spaces), as Bafta alludes, are exhilaratingly fresh. 
To make it a more authentic gritty urban experience, the screen I saw the film in (Screen 2 at Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue) was teeming with rats, by which I mean I saw one about five times. Now, I know that cities are full of rats, but how often does one actually see one? I never previously had in London. 
Doesn't sound like the most praiseworthy review given the time spotting rats rather than watching the screen 
Back to the film, I was really looking forward to this- the overblown gunplay, plus the fact Paul Giamatti can do no wrong in my book and *anything* with quite possibly the most beautiful woman in the world (obviously, my wife is not in the room as I'm typing this) in it can't fail. But it did, oddly.
Sorry to be so shallow, but what let it down for me was the actual presentation of the gunplay. It struck me that the camerawork was so straightforward and unimaginative. It didn't necessarily need to have bullet-time effects, but this is a film where there should be at least be exciting angles going on all over the place to amplify the comic book style violence of the whole shebang and I don't recall *any*. The cinematography equally did little for me. I couldn't help feeling if the crew had taken a leaf out of The Matrix's book, the whole thing would have been a lot more of a thrill-ride. |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 15:52:11
Just what I thought! If Ratatouille is on in that screen (as is very possible), I'll definitely watch it there! |
| rabid kazook |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 15:40:37
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
To make it a more authentic gritty urban experience, the screen I saw the film in (Screen 2 at Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue) was teeming with rats, by which I mean I saw one about five times. Now, I know that cities are full of rats, but how often does one actually see one? I never previously had in London.
Maybe they thought it was a Ratatouille showing?  |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 09/26/2007 : 01:32:53
I saw this tonight and I found it just awesome. The plot is indeed flimsy in the extreme, but I while I would normally mind that I didn't at all - though it wouldn't have hurt what plot there is to be not so silly. But Clive Owen is great and the gunfight sequences (especially the way that Owen moves through and otherwise manipulates spaces), as Bafta alludes, are exhilaratingly fresh.
To make it a more authentic gritty urban experience, the screen I saw the film in (Screen 2 at Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue) was teeming with rats, by which I mean I saw one about five times. Now, I know that cities are full of rats, but how often does one actually see one? I never previously had in London. |
| rabid kazook |
Posted - 09/20/2007 : 20:25:24
Sounds like this year's Crank, and that one was moronic and unwatchable... so I won't be really seeing it. I also must persuade myself that Statham hadn't stared in no movie other than of Guy Ritchie's.
One other note too - Clive's not really a good action hero (Sin City... ughhh), with on the other hand much more fitting roles in Crupier, Gosford Park, Closer, Inside Man and Children of Men. |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 09/18/2007 : 23:28:31
quote:
It can only work if the actors perform with a self-referential irony that only comes from an understanding of character that makes up for the lack of any inherent in the script.
Now, see, that's exactly what made the film NOT work for me. I can get pretty much all of what Shoot 'Em Up provided me from Sin City, Bad Boys II or Crank and I can get it from people who actually mean it to be cool instead of stupid. When the message of the movie turns out to be, of all things, pro-gun control, the moviemakers are just shoving your nose in how much they don't really care. God, I hate irony. I mean, there's a lot of stuff I admire about this movie -- carrot through the skull, ha ha awesome. But still. I would have liked this movie a lot more if it could just be what it is without apologizing for itself. |
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