Watching Movies with the Work-Wife: “Shoot ‘Em Up”

So, I decided to cheer up Kassandra the work-wife after what had been for her a day of frustratingly fruitless attempts to affix a bayonet to her service automatic. You’d think it’d simply be a matter of getting a fair-sized survival knife to mate up with the Sig P229’s rail system (I know I certainly did), but I guess not. Anyway, the whole experience left her grumpy and when your work-spouse is grumpy life just isn’t any fun. So I suggested we split a pizza and watch a movie.

“Okay,” she sulked. “But not one of your pussy documentaries.”

“Documentaries are informative,” I replied defensively.

“I don’t like learning stuff. Makes me feel dumb. How about that new Clive Owen action movie. Shoot ‘Em Up? Clive Owen and guns. That’s a great big ol’ sandwich o’ goodness right there.”

So we settled in for an evening of pizza, gun-cleaning, and Shoot ‘Em Up. It’s an absurd movie, really. Almost not worth criticizing, since the writer/director Jonathan Davis pushes the action so unbelievably, outrageously over the top it’s pretty clear he’s not taking the whole affair seriously. Still, there were some points the work-wife and I saw fit to comment on, and they serve as a review. Of sorts.

[0:36—Clive Owen’s character—only known as “Smith”—bites a carrot. The scene is shown in close-up and slow-motion]

Me: Wow, he bit the hell out of that carrot.

WW: Clive Owen is hot. Why do they have him so grungy?

[2:08—Smith kills a man by ramming a carrot through the back of his throat]

WW: Think that would really work?

Me: No.

WW: I think it would. Let’s see if we can pay some homeless guy to let us try.

Me: Because the jumper-cable thing worked out so well? No.

[3:19—Smith shoots a guy because he doesn’t like his ponytail: “Jackhole. Ponytails don’t make you look hip, young, or cool.”]

WW: Did you ever have a ponytail?

Me: Yes, it was a long time ago. I don’t like to talk about it.

WW: That’s so lame. I bet you had a goatee, too.

Me: I don’t like to talk about it.

[4:06—Smith’s Walther PPK runs out of ammo. “Piece of crap!” he snarls]

WW: That was subtle.

Me: If he wanted to be Bond, he should have just asked.

[7:07—Smith shouts “Fuck you! Fucking fuckers!” at the bad guys.]

Me: So how long you figure it took them to write this script? Ten? Twenty minutes?

[11:07—Smith tries to shoot someone, but his gun is wet, so he dries it with a hairdryer before shooting the guy]

Me: That’s dumb. A gun will still shoot if it gets wet. I’ve dropped mine in puddles and it still works.

WW: I jumped in a pool with mine and it worked fine when I got out.

Me: Why’d you jump in a pool with it?

WW: Pool party. Forgot I had it on.

Me: Well why did you start shooting when you got out?

WW: Bored.

[16:27—Smith visits a lactating prostitute (played by Monica Bellucci) and walks in on her servicing a john who has a breast-feeding fetish.]

Me: Ew.

WW: Ew.

[33:15—Smith shoots it out with about two dozen bad guys in a warehouse]

Me: Is he using a Beretta 92F?

WW: Omigod! He just picked up an Uzi! An Uzi! Nobody uses those anymore.

Me: And that’s an MP-5.

WW: Hey, movie! 1987 called, it wants its small arms back!

Me: Hee hee hee

[45:53—Smith and Bellucci have sex]

WW: He is so hot.

Me: Why is she still wearing her skirt?

WW: Seriously. I would so do him until he begged for mercy.

Me: You’d probably have some competition there.

WW: I mean it. I would wreck him. I would destroy that. He would have to be hospitalized for exhaustion and severe dehydration afterward…

[47:01—Bad guys attack Smith and Bellucci while they’re having sex standing up. Smith continues thrusting, while shooting bad guys until he brings them both to climax just as he kills the last bad guy]

WW: Would that work?

Me: I don’t know.

WW: If she was supporting herself with her arms and had her legs wraped around him…

Me: There are a lot of mechanics involved.

WW: Would it break?

Me: Please don’t let the gunshot or the subsequent sound of my brains hitting the wall distract you from the movie.

[55:01—We learn Smith’s tragic family history]

Me: So his wife and kids were killed by a crazed gunman in a McDonalds?

WW: Didn’t that really happen?

Me: Yep.

WW: Well, that’s not much fun.

[1:08:22—Smith jumps from the bad guy’s private jet and is pursued by parachuting gunmen]

WW: These are some of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen.

Me: I’ve seen blue-screen effects more realistic than this.

WW: I’ve seen claymation more realistic than this.

[1:15:45—Smith, his hands broken by the bad guys, wedges bullets between his fingers, then heats them near a fireplace until they fire off and kill the bad guy]

Me: Fake!

WW: Fake!

Me: Fire’s not hot enough to detonate them.

WW: And without the accumulated pressure that the gun’s chamber provides and the direction the barrel provides, those bullets wouldn’t travel two feet. And certainly not in a straight line.

Me: Dumbasses.

[1:18:11—Smith reunites with Bellucci, who has been hiding out someplace and is now working as a waitress]

WW: Awwwww…he got her out of The Life.

Me: Yeah. It’s okay to be a ruthless killer in the movies, but being a prostitute is just plain immoral.

[1:19:46—Credits roll]

Me: That’s it? The damn movie’s not even 90 minutes long? Jesus, it’s not even 80 minutes long! I’m damn glad we didn’t pony up ten bucks to see it in a theatre.

WW: Clive Owen is hot.