Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.

I’m starting to panic a little bit.

It’s the end of August already, and I’ve only seen about 90 new films this year. Normally by this point, I should be well over 120 films seen, and I’m worried that I’ll come in really light this year. I’m seeing five films a week at this point most weeks, which is a big commitment of time when you live as far out of Hollywood as I do now and you’re also juggling family time, obviously important with a two-year-old in the house. This week alone, I've seen DAN IN REAL LIFE, MICHAEL CLAYTON, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, HALLOWEEN, and I'll wrap it up with SLEUTH tonight.

The Friday before I left on a family trip last week, I ended up sitting down in the New Line screening room in the middle of the afternoon to see SHOOT ‘EM UP, probably the one chance I’d have to see it pre-release.

I have a feeling a fair percentage of action fans are going to have preposterous fun with SHOOT ‘EM UP even if they don’t have a big Alamo Drafthouse-style event afterwards. I think people who get the movie and get into the vibe of the movie are going to have a huge amount of fun. Davis sets the tone for the film quickly and expertly, and by the time the title splashes across the screen, you’ll know if you’re onboard or not. You’ll know if this is a film you’re going to hang with for ninety minutes. It goes by lightning fast, too, but if you’re turned off by that quick burst of activity and violence at the beginning, you’re not going to hang with the rest of the film at all. It just gets crazier from there. This is a pure action film, where each moment is either getting the characters to an action scene or an action scene, and where each action scene is built to be a little different, a new riff on what’s come before, constantly upping its own sense of the outrageous.

It’s easy to orchestrate mayhem, but it’s hard to make it count. SHOOT ‘EM UP is ridiculous from the moment it starts, and yet, somehow, in the midst of this insane mayhem and despite the fact that the film moves at a preposterous gallop from the opening frame to the last, there’s a soul in there.

Part of that comes from the fact that Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci are full-fledged grown-ups. But part of that comes from the fact that the entire thing is so earnest, so completely without any post-modern winking. Yeah, the film has a sense of humor about itself, but it doesn’t treat action films like they’re beneath contempt, something to be roasted instead of enjoyed. I’ve heard a few people reference CRANK when describing SHOOT ‘EM UP, and I can see why they’re making the comparison. Both of them are almost delirious with the potential of action cinema, giddy at what they get to do. But CRANK is filthy like it was made by a couple of college guys, while SHOOT ‘EM UP is filthy like it was made by an overcaffeinated 13-year-old. Even when it’s doing its best to shock you, there’s an exuberant sweetness that makes it fun.

Take the bad guy in the movie, for example. Paul Giamatti flirts with mainstream stardom every year, but he seems happy to trash whatever carefully cultivated image he’s been working on when he plays a role like this. He took the character that Michael Davis wrote and then cranked up the skeeze factor by about a thousand percent. It’s hilarious, but when you see how far he’s willing to push it, you might be momentarily shocked. You can practically hear Davis snickering off-camera, though, and Giamatti has so much visible fun that it’s hard to stay offended.

There’s a mystery of sorts driving the film, but when the pieces all fall into place, you realize that the “why” is far less important than the “how” in the way this thing unfolds. Peter Pau’s photography makes great use of daylight and grime, and I like how neatly the film sidesteps the film noir thing visually. The film moves so fast that when it ends, you’ll be a little shocked. That pacing is one of the reasons Davis gets away with everything he does. If this film took itself even a little more seriously, it would collapse. You can see that this is not an expensive film by any means. The visual effects feel low-budget, and the skydiving scene in particular is more exciting in the way it’s imagined than in the way it’s executed. But again... somehow, that’s part of the charm of the thing.

To me, this feels like an old-school New Line film. It’s easy to forget these days that New Line was an exploitation house back in the day. This movie reminds me of something like THE HIDDEN, a genre exercise that more than delivers on its premise, one that never stops trying to entertain. And honestly, I appreciated seeing the New Line logo in front of this one because it suggests to me that there’s still room for that New Line, the New Line I was fond of before there was any hint of LORD OF THE RINGS on the wind.

Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles