Have you ever watched an action movie and felt like it was taking itself far too seriously? Most modern action movies seem to suffer from what could only be explained as ‘a plot’: Snakes on a Plane was weighted down by mafioso politics, The Departed was full of turns and twists, Crank was just unbelievable, Brokeback Mountain didn’t have any action at all, Transformers sucked like J. Edgar Hoover. Why can’t an action movie just be an unjustified romp into unnecessary and incredible violence once in a while?

Well, enter Michael Davis’s Shoot ‘Em Up. It is, without a doubt, the most action-packed action movie I’ve ever seen. The editors literally discovered a new way to compress as much action per frame into the movie as humanly possible. There’s seriously less than two scenes in which Clive Owen’s character, Mr. Smith, isn’t doing something amazing.

And by the way, within the first five minutes, a cronie gets stabbed in the mouth.

(By the way, the review below is spoiler-free.)

Shoot ‘Em Up’s Movie Trailer
IMDb Page
Movie Stills (warning: spoilers!)

Shoot ‘Em Up isn’t your average action movie — in fact, it’s more of a dadaesque expression of the action genre. The production team for the movie, somewhere along the line, decided that action movies should quit taking themselves so seriously and skirted the plot just enough to give some vestibule of coherence to why Mr. Smith can run through a room and shoot eight guys in the head.

And you know what the strange part is? Normally, you can tell somebody the beginning of a plotline without really spoiling anything for them. With Shoot ‘Em Up, that’s not the case. If I told you what happens in the very first five minutes of the freaking movie, it’d spoil part of it. Instead, all I can tell you is that Shoot ‘Em Up is over an hour of Clive Owen pulling some incredible stunts and shooting bitches with reckless abandon.

The movie is absolutely rife with pulp-fiction type motifs - ridiculous political plots, plenty of nameless characters on screen for just a couple minutes at a time, and dubious-as-hell physics. But it’s good. It’s very good.

Right after my roommates and I saw the movie, though, we had a serious discussion - considering the fact that we laughed through the whole thing (because ALL of the stunts in the movie are just so incredibly outlandish and badass), we were curious to know if the movie was an action movie or a comedy. Think back to how you felt when you saw The 300’s syrupy manliness seeping from your movie theatre’s screen – Shoot ‘Em Up is The 300, minus the nationalism.

I’m not kidding when I say that it’s pure action. Imagine it like sodas: every other action movie is soda flavored with High Fructose Corn Syrup; Shoot ‘Em Up is pure cane sugar with a couple drops of water.

In a world where movie ticket prices can skyrocket above $10, it’s really hard to justify the price - but every once in a while, I see a movie on the Big Screen that wouldn’t nearly have the same effect if I watched it in the privacy of my home. Shoot ‘Em Up was worth every penny of $8.

See this movie. At least, just to see Paul Giamatti act against Clive Owen. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

And by the way, the stuntmen credits at the end of the movie lasts for a good 60 seconds.

I repeat, you will not be disappointed.