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List Price: $35.99 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 5489
Released: January 1, 2008 |
| Our Price: $10.96 |
| Used Price: $10.96 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: Blu-ray |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 12/31/2007
Description of Shoot 'Em Up [Blu-ray]:
Every action movie has a moment so over the top you have to laugh; Shoot 'Em Up consists of nothing but these moments. A carrot-eating, lone wolf kind of guy named Smith (Clive Owen, Children of Men, Inside Man) steps in to protect a pregnant woman from a gunman--and finds himself, with the aid of a lactating prostitute (Monica Belluci, The Matrix Revisited), defending the newborn child from a sleazy contract killer Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti, American Splendor, Sideways) and his army of thugs. That's pretty much the plot, but story is beside the point. Writer/director Michael Davis (Monster Man) has a keen sense of what matters in an action movie. The rapid-fire editing is scrupulously coherent; you always grasp what happened in every shoot-out, even if it flagrantly violates the laws of physics or basic plausibility. Explaining how Smith survives a four-story fall--even if that explanation is beyond ridiculous--demonstrates both a sense of wit and a winking respect for the audience's imagination. As a result, Shoot 'Em Up is ten times more entertaining than the likes of Transformers or Rush Hour 3, movies so self-satisfied with special effects or movie stars that they forgot to be fun. (Shoot 'Em Up's only weakness is a sliver of misogyny, the one action movie cliche that it's not clever enough to transcend.) --Bret Fetzer
Shoot 'Em Up [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Fair Warning 
2008-11-26 - The only person who will NOT
be offended and disgusted
by this film
is one who has been weaned
on a steady diet of pornography
of the more perverse variety.
I would give some examples
to illustrate my point,
but the examples are too
offensive for print
in a forum such as this.
Rather than a life-affirming
plot about the heroic defense
of an innocent newborn baby,
it is the shameless exploitation
of a baby in danger to justify
the existance of and interest in
the exploits of two of the
trashiest human beings
I have ever encountered as
"heroes" in a film.
The villian is equally disgusting.
The baby survived attack after
attack due to the assistance
of our "heroes".
That's the good news.
The bad news is that little baby
"Oscar" now has to live with his
foster parents.
Good luck with that!
Trust me.
There is no reason good enough
to ignore the negatives
and watch this film.
Ammo Burner 
2008-11-04 - A fun ride in the style of Peckinpah and John Woo. The smell of burning gunpowder and bullets flying. A lot of dark humor also.
THIS movie is Ridiculous!
2008-11-02 - I watched this movie the other day with my friends and it feels like some very bad video game where one guy is invincible. The plot makes no sense and the blood and gore is overdone. It is basically about some British Agent that kills around 500 people by the end of the movie mainly by a Magnum. Too much sexual stuff; definitely not for under 17. Don't waste your time.
Great Action Movie
2008-10-26 - This film is just filled with some unbelievable action by all of the actors. My family really, really liked this film.
A love-hate movie that I loved 
2008-09-15 - "Shoot 'Em Up" is a straight-faced over-the-top parody of the action movie genre. Profoundly silly one-liners after shooting a guy? Check. No backstory about our cookie-cutter characters? Got it. An overly convoluted plot that makes no sense at all? Yep. The ability of the hero to run away from 10 guys shooting at him a close range? Check. And stunts that would kill a regular human being 10 times over, from which the hero walks away? About every 5 minutes.
Where most action movies present these elements and expect us to swallow them, "Shoot 'Em Up" goes so far over the top that it flings those elements, and others, right in the audience's face as part of its bone-dry parody. I think that's why this movie is so polarizing - whether you like this kind of thing is a matter of taste. For example, whether you find a pro-gun-control gunfighting hero to be head-scratching or funny as heck will depend completely on your sense of humor.
For this film to work, Owen and Giamatti had to own their characters completely, as ridiculous as they were, and they definitely did so. The pace has to keep moving so you don't stop and think about the details too much, and it certainly did. At 90 minutes, this film is just long enough.
The irony is that "Shoot 'Em Up," even as a parody of the genre, is a superior example of the genre. It's at least worth a rent, particularly if you have Blu-Ray - the Blu-Ray transfer is fantastic.
