CON: Shoot ‘Em Up

There’s not many regrets to be had out here at The Con, but missing the screening of SHOOT ‘EM UP was one of them. Especially after seeing the clips (more on that in a bit). The film stars Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, and Paul Giamatti and is directed by Michael Davis. Here’s the rundown: Clive Owen stars as Mr. Smith, a mysterious loner who teams up with an unlikely ally (Monica Belluci) to protect a newborn baby from a determined criminal (Paul Giamatti) who hunts them throughout the bowels of the city.

Clip 1: We fade in on Clive Owen sitting on a bus stop bench, eating a carrot. Yes, a carrot. A pregnant lady comes running down a sidewalk screaming and a guy rips around the corner chasing the lady down the street as Clive Owen watches and eats his carrot. After a couple beats, Owen shakes his head, and decides to get involved. Cut to the inside of a building and a montage starts with Clive Owen killing the guy that was chasing the lady by shoving the carrot in his mouth. Then it’s Owen killing guy after guy in some really creative ways as Nirvana’s BREED plays, which made me very happy. Owen meets up with the pregnant lady and assists her in giving birth while still shooting baddies. The baby pops out into Owen’s hands and he proceeds to cut the umbilical cord by shooting off. Paul Giamatti shows up and has a shoot out with Owen, who’s now carrying the baby.

Shoot ‘Em Up, you had me at Clive Owen shooting the umbilical cord off. How great is that? The only thing I can think of that would top that is biting it off. I have a feeling the body count for this will be really high, seeing as Clive Owen killed maybe about 30 guys in just that one clip. At this point, director Michael Davis comes out to the panel and discusses how big of a James Bond fan he was and Shoot ‘Em Up is kind of an updated version of it. Then he brings out the man of the panel, Clive Owen, who’s met with an overwhelming high pitched howl from the audience. Clive didn’t offer up much in the form info, he was very short answered and left it up to Davis to do the talking.

Clip 2: This clip involved some dialogue between Paul Giamatti and Clive Owen, still holding the baby. After some back and forth, Owen manages to grab Giamatti’s gun that he had pointed in his face, only Owen can shoot because Giamatti’s gun is designed with a fingerprinting device that will only shoot from the fingerprints of its owner. Giamatti’s goons come in and start chasing down Owen (still holding the baby) while Motorhead’s ACE OF SPADES plays, which again, makes me very happy. Like the first clip, this includes a montage of kill after kill.

Clip 3: Clive Owen is being chased out of a building, baby in arms. He hot wires a red BMW and floors it, being chased by a black SUV with bad dudes in it. The Beamer is getting all shot up, Owen looks down at the floor board and sees the baby’s blanket covered with glass. Owen does some aerial jump with the car, slams back down and notices the baby gone from the passenger floor board. He looks in his rear view mirror and sees the baby in the street. He drives back to pick it up and misses. He’s going head on with this armored black truck. Owen shoots out his own windshield and then the approaching truck’s, and as the two vehicles meet for a head on collision, Owen is catapulted through his windshield into the armored truck, sliding all the way to the back. There are about five or six bad guys in there, and he kills them all. Then gets the baby.

At this point, I just want to see the friggin’ movie already! The middle clip was filler, just showcasing some cool back and forth between Paul Giamatti and Clive Owen. The third clip was money, as I’m a huge fan of car chase scenes, and this one was fresh and new. Can’t wait for it. Here’s some other things I got from the panel.

• Director Michael Davis wrote the flick based on the John Woo classic, HARD BOILED.
• Davis was an animator and storyboard artist for Pee Wee’s Playhouse. When Pee Wee got into his…ahem, “trouble”, Davis , along with others, protested.
• To help sell the studio, Davis drew over 17,000 cells and animated it. This was actually the first clip that was shown and the comparison was amazing.
• Anytime the studio gave Davis a hard time, Clive Owen would personally go to bat for him against the studio.
• There’s a “sky scene” which has Owen hanging from a helicopter. Though it was CGI, Owen still had to hang from wires for four days.
• The baby in the often was fed late or early, depending on the scene that was being shot.
• In the States, baby’s can only work 30 minutes a day. In Canada, they can work up to 8 hours a day.
• Monica Bellucci is very hot.
• The film opens September 7th.