Mediocre Movie Time!
After a long month of heavy overtime and crazy work-related stress, nothing relaxes the body like mind-numbing cinematic bliss. Except maybe sex. But I'll talk about the former here.
Shoot 'Em Up
Being a fan of action and adventure movies does mean that I have seen more than my share of gun-toting heroes waging a one-(wo)man-and-ten-thousand-bullet war against whatever happens to be in their way at the time. This is not an uncommon theme in action movie history. However, there is a difference between doing it the Schwarzeneggerian way, in which heavy machine gun fire is used to obliterate resistance without any real thought or focus, and doing it the John Woo way, in which a gunman has a certain grace and style and flair while obliterating the aforementioned resistance. This movie falls into the latter category, and therefore action fans who like their gunman a bit more stylized and creative might appreciate this film just for its combat choreography.
Also, seeing Paul Giamatti being a sinister hit man is quite funny, if only because most of his other roles have been quite peaceful and non-villainous. It's a neat change of pace for him. Sometimes you gotta step out of that typecast mold, after all.
The plot: Clive Owen shoots everyone. There's maybe three people in this film that Clive is not personally responsible for shooting.
The pros: Action! People who are fans of John Woo's films, especially those featuring Chow Yun Fat as a guy with guns shooting everything that moves, will find a lot to enjoy in this film. The action rarely lets up, and becomes more over-the-top with every gun battle. It's like...
Ok, screw this review. I'm going to summarize the gun battles right here, just because they're that over-the-top.
1) Opening scene. Clive follows a guy with a gun who appears to be chasing a pregnant woman and intending harm. In the gun battle that follows, Clive shoots a dozen thugs, jumps through a window, slides across a warehouse on an oil slick that he creates (shooting thugs all the while), and DELIVERS A BABY. Note that he is still being shot at while delivering a baby. He can do this because he is British.
2) Clive attempts to abandon the baby on a spinny thing in a playground, because he's a loner and doesn't want the baby. But woe! Paul Giamatti is trying to kill the baby with a sniper rifle. Paul is not fucking around here. Clive saves the baby by SHOOTING THE SPINNY-GO-ROUND and causing it to spin faster and faster so Paul can't get a good shot in. Clive then rescues the baby anyway and runs away. He can do this because his character description is "moody yet kind-hearted, with a dash of British."
3) Clive gets into a showdown with Paul in a brothel. Paul and some of his quality thugs have guns which are sensitive to the owner's thumbprint and will not fire for the wrong thumb. Again, Paul is not fucking around here. Clive has run out of ammo and taken one of these thumbprint guns. He has also CHOPPED OFF THE GUY'S HAND and uses it to activate the gun and shoot Paul. He can do this because he is a no-holds-barred action hero.
4) Paul gathers a team of fifty thugs. He feels that fifty is enough to take out Clive and baby. He is wrong. Clive kills EVERY LAST THUG. During this battle, he rolls along an assembly line conveyor belt, somersaults with a heavy metal table, rappels down the center of a large open staircase while spinning and firing and never missing, and then drops three stories and squishes a thug at the bottom. He can do this because he eats his veggies.
5) Clive has sex with Monica Bellucci. This is awesome in and of itself.
5a) Coitus Interruptus! Commandos attack Clive while he and Monica are doing the mattress mambo. Clive, WHILE STILL FIRMLY ENTRENCHED IN MONICA'S NETHER REGIONS, kills ten heavily armed commandos and then shoots his load. He can do this because the script insisted on a wacky sex scene.
6) Clive goes for a confrontation in a gun factory. Yes, a gun factory. You can already see how this is going to pan out. He sets up an elaborate array of loaded assault rifles and shotguns controlled by a set of strings that he has linked to the security control center in the middle of the warehouse. As he watches the cameras, he pulls strings, and the heavily armed security guards who guard the gun factory die. He can do this because he watched too many episodes of "The A-Team" as a young boy.
7) Clive is on board an airplane. First he shoots an old guy with a degenerative bone disease who happens to be a corrupt presidential candidate. He can do this because no one fucks with Clive Owen. Then he dives out of the plane, parachute and gun at the ready. The secret service parachutes after him, and he engages in a gun battle with the secret service WHILE SKYDIVING THOUSANDS OF FEET ABOVE THE EARTH. He kills the cheif secret service officer by redirecting him into the blades of a nearby helicopter. He can do this because... well, fuck, I really don't know how this gun battle is even remotely possible.
8) Clive is in a red sedan being chased by thugs in a big black van. They have lots of guns. He spins the car around and aims straight at the van. He shoots out the van's windshield. He shoots out his own windshield. He unbuckles his seat belt. He hits the van head on. The collision propels him OUT OF HIS SEAT AND INTO THE VAN where he lands unharmed, behind the thugs, and thus catches them quite by surprise and shoots them all. He does this because this film has no concept of the laws of physics.
9) Clive has been tortured by Paul. All his fingers have been broken. He cannot successfully wield a gun, and Paul is closing in fast. He slumps to the ground near a burning fireplace, tired, spent, broken. Paul saunters in and falls into the classic villain blunder: soliloquizing. Clive, however, has taken the ammunition out of his gun and put a bullet between each of his fingers. He then STICKS HIS HAND IN THE BURNING FIREPLACE AND THE FLAMES IGNITE THE BULLETS WHICH GO OFF IN HIS BROKEN BURNING HAND AND MANAGE TO ALL HIT PAUL SQAURE IN THE CHEST. You have got to be fucking shitting me here.
Let's get this straight. I enjoyed this movie immensely. I'd probably watch it again because its dearth of plot and abundance of action appealed to the three or four brain cells that separate me from your average chimpanzee. I...
No, screw that too. Clive's schtick in this movie is that he's always eating carrots. He grows them in his secret hideout. There are half a dozen close-up shots of Clive chomping a carrot. But wait! A carrot is not just a carrot!
1) One of the first people Clive pastes is killed not by gunfire, oddly enough, but by getting a carrot punched through his throat and out the back of his neck.
2) Later, another upstanding gentleman receives a fatal carrot wound through the eye.
3) Clive distracts security guards in the gun warehouse by tossing a carrot out to attract gunfire. The carrot valiantly gives its orange crunchy life for Clive's survival.
4) Clive jams a carrot stub in the trigger of a machine gun and throws it across a floor so that it autofires and again attracts attention.
5) Clive does not use a carrot during his sex scene. This is good. He does offer a carrot to Monica during one scene, however. Maybe that's phallic imagery or foreshadowing or something. He also suggests pureed carrot to feed the baby.
6) Clive fires another gun with a carrot instead of a finger. I can't recall exactly when that happened, but it did.
7) Clive says "What's up, Doc?" because the script just can't leave well enough alone.
The verdict: This movie's title is the most direct example of "Truth In Advertising" that I've ever seen. And that's fine with me.
Disclaimer: Ok, I admit it, I went to see this movie because Monica Bellucci is hot. Even as a lactating hooker.
Shoot 'Em Up
Being a fan of action and adventure movies does mean that I have seen more than my share of gun-toting heroes waging a one-(wo)man-and-ten-thousand-bullet war against whatever happens to be in their way at the time. This is not an uncommon theme in action movie history. However, there is a difference between doing it the Schwarzeneggerian way, in which heavy machine gun fire is used to obliterate resistance without any real thought or focus, and doing it the John Woo way, in which a gunman has a certain grace and style and flair while obliterating the aforementioned resistance. This movie falls into the latter category, and therefore action fans who like their gunman a bit more stylized and creative might appreciate this film just for its combat choreography.
Also, seeing Paul Giamatti being a sinister hit man is quite funny, if only because most of his other roles have been quite peaceful and non-villainous. It's a neat change of pace for him. Sometimes you gotta step out of that typecast mold, after all.
The plot: Clive Owen shoots everyone. There's maybe three people in this film that Clive is not personally responsible for shooting.
The pros: Action! People who are fans of John Woo's films, especially those featuring Chow Yun Fat as a guy with guns shooting everything that moves, will find a lot to enjoy in this film. The action rarely lets up, and becomes more over-the-top with every gun battle. It's like...
Ok, screw this review. I'm going to summarize the gun battles right here, just because they're that over-the-top.
1) Opening scene. Clive follows a guy with a gun who appears to be chasing a pregnant woman and intending harm. In the gun battle that follows, Clive shoots a dozen thugs, jumps through a window, slides across a warehouse on an oil slick that he creates (shooting thugs all the while), and DELIVERS A BABY. Note that he is still being shot at while delivering a baby. He can do this because he is British.
2) Clive attempts to abandon the baby on a spinny thing in a playground, because he's a loner and doesn't want the baby. But woe! Paul Giamatti is trying to kill the baby with a sniper rifle. Paul is not fucking around here. Clive saves the baby by SHOOTING THE SPINNY-GO-ROUND and causing it to spin faster and faster so Paul can't get a good shot in. Clive then rescues the baby anyway and runs away. He can do this because his character description is "moody yet kind-hearted, with a dash of British."
3) Clive gets into a showdown with Paul in a brothel. Paul and some of his quality thugs have guns which are sensitive to the owner's thumbprint and will not fire for the wrong thumb. Again, Paul is not fucking around here. Clive has run out of ammo and taken one of these thumbprint guns. He has also CHOPPED OFF THE GUY'S HAND and uses it to activate the gun and shoot Paul. He can do this because he is a no-holds-barred action hero.
4) Paul gathers a team of fifty thugs. He feels that fifty is enough to take out Clive and baby. He is wrong. Clive kills EVERY LAST THUG. During this battle, he rolls along an assembly line conveyor belt, somersaults with a heavy metal table, rappels down the center of a large open staircase while spinning and firing and never missing, and then drops three stories and squishes a thug at the bottom. He can do this because he eats his veggies.
5) Clive has sex with Monica Bellucci. This is awesome in and of itself.
5a) Coitus Interruptus! Commandos attack Clive while he and Monica are doing the mattress mambo. Clive, WHILE STILL FIRMLY ENTRENCHED IN MONICA'S NETHER REGIONS, kills ten heavily armed commandos and then shoots his load. He can do this because the script insisted on a wacky sex scene.
6) Clive goes for a confrontation in a gun factory. Yes, a gun factory. You can already see how this is going to pan out. He sets up an elaborate array of loaded assault rifles and shotguns controlled by a set of strings that he has linked to the security control center in the middle of the warehouse. As he watches the cameras, he pulls strings, and the heavily armed security guards who guard the gun factory die. He can do this because he watched too many episodes of "The A-Team" as a young boy.
7) Clive is on board an airplane. First he shoots an old guy with a degenerative bone disease who happens to be a corrupt presidential candidate. He can do this because no one fucks with Clive Owen. Then he dives out of the plane, parachute and gun at the ready. The secret service parachutes after him, and he engages in a gun battle with the secret service WHILE SKYDIVING THOUSANDS OF FEET ABOVE THE EARTH. He kills the cheif secret service officer by redirecting him into the blades of a nearby helicopter. He can do this because... well, fuck, I really don't know how this gun battle is even remotely possible.
8) Clive is in a red sedan being chased by thugs in a big black van. They have lots of guns. He spins the car around and aims straight at the van. He shoots out the van's windshield. He shoots out his own windshield. He unbuckles his seat belt. He hits the van head on. The collision propels him OUT OF HIS SEAT AND INTO THE VAN where he lands unharmed, behind the thugs, and thus catches them quite by surprise and shoots them all. He does this because this film has no concept of the laws of physics.
9) Clive has been tortured by Paul. All his fingers have been broken. He cannot successfully wield a gun, and Paul is closing in fast. He slumps to the ground near a burning fireplace, tired, spent, broken. Paul saunters in and falls into the classic villain blunder: soliloquizing. Clive, however, has taken the ammunition out of his gun and put a bullet between each of his fingers. He then STICKS HIS HAND IN THE BURNING FIREPLACE AND THE FLAMES IGNITE THE BULLETS WHICH GO OFF IN HIS BROKEN BURNING HAND AND MANAGE TO ALL HIT PAUL SQAURE IN THE CHEST. You have got to be fucking shitting me here.
Let's get this straight. I enjoyed this movie immensely. I'd probably watch it again because its dearth of plot and abundance of action appealed to the three or four brain cells that separate me from your average chimpanzee. I...
No, screw that too. Clive's schtick in this movie is that he's always eating carrots. He grows them in his secret hideout. There are half a dozen close-up shots of Clive chomping a carrot. But wait! A carrot is not just a carrot!
1) One of the first people Clive pastes is killed not by gunfire, oddly enough, but by getting a carrot punched through his throat and out the back of his neck.
2) Later, another upstanding gentleman receives a fatal carrot wound through the eye.
3) Clive distracts security guards in the gun warehouse by tossing a carrot out to attract gunfire. The carrot valiantly gives its orange crunchy life for Clive's survival.
4) Clive jams a carrot stub in the trigger of a machine gun and throws it across a floor so that it autofires and again attracts attention.
5) Clive does not use a carrot during his sex scene. This is good. He does offer a carrot to Monica during one scene, however. Maybe that's phallic imagery or foreshadowing or something. He also suggests pureed carrot to feed the baby.
6) Clive fires another gun with a carrot instead of a finger. I can't recall exactly when that happened, but it did.
7) Clive says "What's up, Doc?" because the script just can't leave well enough alone.
The verdict: This movie's title is the most direct example of "Truth In Advertising" that I've ever seen. And that's fine with me.
Disclaimer: Ok, I admit it, I went to see this movie because Monica Bellucci is hot. Even as a lactating hooker.