Curator Watchlist
A gleefully over-the-top action-comedy that turns gunfights into slapstick mayhem. It’s short, fast, and committed to its ridiculous premise, but the one-note chaos and juvenile edge will be a dealbreaker for some viewers.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 1h 26m
Director: Michael Davis
Starring: Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci
A man named Mr. Smith delivers a woman's baby during a shootout, and is then called upon to protect the newborn from the army of gunmen.
Michael Davis
Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci
A gleefully over-the-top action-comedy that turns gunfights into slapstick mayhem. It’s short, fast, and committed to its ridiculous premise, but the one-note chaos and juvenile edge will be a dealbreaker for some viewers.
Shoot 'Em Up is a live-action cartoon that treats ballistics like punchlines and logic like an optional extra. It’s built on a simple, silly engine: protect the baby, outrun the gunmen, escalate the carnage, repeat. That simplicity is the point, and the film’s biggest asset is how shamelessly it commits to the bit.
Clive Owen plays the straight-faced action hero as if he wandered in from a hardboiled noir and decided to weaponize carrots. Paul Giamatti leans into gleeful villainy, and the movie’s pace barely pauses long enough for you to question the physics. When it works, it’s a nasty, funny burst of pure genre excess.
The downside is that the joke is also the whole machine. If the cartoon brutality and macho absurdism click, this is a cult-action treat; if they don’t, there’s not much underneath to rescue it. It’s best approached as a 90-minute dare, not a serious thriller.
DirkH (5★) · 440 likes
Sublime videogame surrealism laced with tongue in cheek taking-the-pissness covered in nubile Belluccicana and finished with equal measures of gun porn and carrots. And Paul fucking Giamatti.
Eli Hayes (4.5★) · 355 likes
"I'm a British nanny, and I'm dangerous." Please direct another film, Michael Davis.
Paul Scheer (4★) · 318 likes
Criminally underrated Bugs Bunny meets John Wick Saw it in the theaters and it was like a rock concert.
Justin Peterson (4★) · 232 likes
Recommended by: Marvin123 As satisfyingly silly and violent as I have seen a live-action cartoon get. "What's up, doc? ... Ooh, you're a wascally wabbit ... But you're not wascally enough ... Yeah? That's a six-shooter. I just counted six shots. You've blown your load." Marvin123 really put this movie into perspective for me when he noted that Shoot ’Em Up was inspired by Looney Tunes, and 'Hard Boiled'. The Bugs Bunny references were obvious, but I did not notice… more
Josh Lewis (3★) · 217 likes
FUK U One of the better vulgar macho edgelord cartoons from this era in part because it legitimately aspires to gun-fu wackiness and was shot by a Hong Kong legend who knows how to amp up that level of ridiculousness (like a series of extended ultraviolent gunfights over a baby that being thrown around in a bulletproof vest, or all the various murders by carrot) while still retaining some tangibility. Clive Owen's straight face bugs bunny if he was really… more
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protective instinct, found-family surrogate parenting, cartoon violence, black comedy, hyper-stylized action, macho absurdism, crime underworld, surreal gunplay
action-comedy, black comedy, ultraviolence, gun-fu, cult film, 2000s action, surreal, crime thriller, B-movie energy, anti-realism