Yesterday we had the day off because of Thanksgiving (reminds me of Eli Roth's fake trailer from Grindhouse!), which was good.  I got to relax at home and watch a movie as well.  The movie in question is Shoot 'em Up, which stars Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci and Paul Giamatti, and is written and directed by Michael Davis.  If there's a movie I've seen that lives up to its title, this is it!  At 85 minutes, this is a very short movie, but it manages to pack in enough bullets, twisted humour and all-around awesomeness to fill two movies!

The movie begins with a mysterious drifter Mr Smith (Owen) sitting at a bus stop minding his own business and chewing on a carrot.  He soon witnesses a pregnant woman running into some sort of warehouse, and she is being pursued by what appear to be professional hitmen.  He steps in, delivers her baby and kills all the bad guys (note: one of them is killed with that aforementioned carrot), but the woman is killed off by accident anyway.  So, Smith takes the baby and runs, but is confronted by mysterious assassin Hertz (Giamatti), who is apparently the leader of the horde of bad guys who just poured in!  Smith escapes though, and now must protect the baby, because it's obvious that Hertz wants it for some reason.

It is important to note that all this happens in the first ten minutes of the film — this should give you an idea of the relentless pace of the movie.  Also I believe this is the first time I am seeing a vegetable used as a weapon.  From here on, the movie moves quickly from one action scene to the next, but provides enough plot too to keep things interesting.  Smith takes the baby to a prostitute DQ (Bellucci) and asks for her help.  She is reluctant at first but soon agrees to help out Smith, and the two of them go on the run from Hertz.  The story is a bit convoluted and the explanation offered for why Hertz wants the baby is quite bizarre, but in a movie where a guy can get killed with a carrot, this is perfectly acceptable.  The movie is incredibly, outrageously, entertaining and wraps things up pretty nicely at the end.  What more can one expect?

Lots of talent here behind and in front of the camera — the acting is excellent and the film is photographed by Peter Pau, the Academy Award winner who shot Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Writer/director Michael Davis here is like a demented John Woo, the action scenes are very well staged (you'll be happy to know, they didn't tone down the violence or anything) and there are several touches of black comedy as well.  At the end of the movie you'll have a big silly smile on your face.  The movie rates a 9/10 at least, in my opinion, and I think anyone who likes action movies will enjoy this very much.

And as you may notice, I did a quick drawing of the three principals from the movie (from L-R, Giamatti, Owen, and Bellucci) based on the posters.  This was done in 8B pencil (yes!  8B!  The reason I had one is that I got a pack of drawing pencils as a gift, and it was on the table when I decided to start drawing, so just thought I'd try it out), and you can click the image above for a larger version.  An interesting thing is that the filesize of these images is very small (825 × 404 pixels and just 83 KB), as they are 32-bit PNGs (but I guess, it's the rough nature of the picture that allows this low bpp setting to be used).

Note: see also Versus, for another movie that is full of action like this (but Shoot 'em Up is more satisying).