Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and Monica Belluci star in "Shoot 'Em Up," a 2007 film that I believe is a parody of the action genre. It has to be.
Owen plays a former black ops who helps a woman deliver a baby and then finds himself on the run with the baby as hundreds of people chase him and shoot at him.
I won't go into the whys and wherefores. I will only say that it is non-stop action, with Owen shooting in all kinds of situations - sliding on oil leaks under cars, having sex, sitting, standing, running, jumping, parachuting out of a plane -- he never stops. When he's not shooting he's punching, knifing, or slamming someone's head somewhere. Or eating a carrot.
Monica Belluci is the hooker he asks to help care for the baby as the two of them run for their lives, the baby in tow wearing a bullet-proof vest.
The body count is unbelievable.
Exciting, fun, bloody, violent, and preposterous, you'll be on the edge of your seat rooting for him to make the world safe.
Someone once told me that movies are made for 15-year-old boys in Taiwan. This kind of action film definitely is. You can sit back and watch car chases, thermal guns, nudity, you name it - you don't need to know a word of English.
Clive Owen comes up against Paul Giamatti, and the two actors couldn't be more different. Owen is deadpan and deadly, Giamatti is a showman who can play an evil character like this or comedy with equal facility. I understand he recently played, of all things, Hamlet, and received wonderful reviews.
I really hope Clive Owen plays James Bond. I think he'd be wonderful.
