While I am a long-time Shatner fan (since we used to watch Trek re-runs over the dinner hour in the early '70s), I cannot think of any possible reason why he wanted to do this film, whether for personal development or business reasons. Did he lose a bet?
As a movie fan, I like to appreciate the bad films along with the great ones. But "Shoot or be Shot" doesn't have any flair or funny bits, unintentional or not.
While unrated, there were no objectionable scenes (blink or you'll miss it nudity, cartoonish gunfire "violence" with the endless bullet gunfights), so one is led to believe that the producers merely wanted to save the fee required to get the MPAA to rate it. This will make its way to cable with barely 10 seconds edited out.
Of the eight people that were in the theatre with us, four of them left mid-way, muttering statements like "This is stupid".
Shatner plays an escaped mental patient who has been denied release because he views himself as a screenwriter. The examination board stamps his request "INSANE". He runs into a group of Z-grade moviemakers who "shoot on video because its 80% cheaper than film" and decides to force them to shoot his script at gunpoint. There are a few minor subplots that develop some of the secondary characters, but for the most part, that is the whole movie.
If you want to spend 90 minutes on a Shatner "art" film, see "Free Enterprise" instead, it is a much better film.
