Clive Owens, an actor I like a lot, reprises a look and dress that seems a shotgun/Uzi marriage of Sin City by way of Children of Men. Three day beard, black leather, and sweat. But, in Shoot 'Em he carries a carrot at all times to make sure we know this movie is a cartoon. Certainly not a traditional Bugs Bunny star turn, but then there was only one Bugs, but enough cartoon-esquire violence to, as a comparison, make American Psycho seem a documentary,or maybe The Wild Bunch a haiku to male bonding. The title says most of it but does not suggest the humor found amid the gore, the sex amid the bodies, the decadence of the love interest and her special talent, or talents since one would hope that both instruments are operative. On second thought maybe less a Second Amendment love song than a La Leche league membership drive.<br /><br />A body count that would make Joe Bob Briggs choke on his popcorn and ruin his end of movie review scorecard from the front seat of a 57 Chevy at a Texas drive in. A truly memorable body count, a paean to pistols, gun porn, head shots, chest shots, a barrel full of monkeys smörgåsbord of shooting scenes with bad guys dressed to their black nines carrying nines mowed down in ways that must have taken room fulls of writers weeks to top one massacre with another. Only major criticism other than to suspend belief for 97 minutes (or was 97 the number of bodies in the second warehouse scene)...a child in danger.<br /><br />I cringe at even stubbed toes or whimpers from any child in any movie, it's a becoming a father thing I fear. But the child in danger is so cartoonish and so much of a MacGuffin that even weepy me gave up and went with the anti-Spock-ian parenting exhibited. Paul Giamatti as the bad guy, bad pores glistening in menace, all energizer bunny in summoning his black leathered minions to battle, bent on baby-cide, is terrific. Monica Belluci, reminding me of four of the top ten wet dreams ever caused by actresses before the age of thirty (all from the severely underrated 'Flash Gordon') playing living Viagra in a role that makes the male viewer think that he and the writer/director should have a drink and talk about women. And a black helicopter plot sufficiently divorced from reality as to allow two hundred uber violent deaths with scarcely a qualm from this viewer and enough of a fashionable issue or two to be able to argue that Shoot 'Em Up is worth seeing to less demented than you friends.<br /><br />And, Clive, Sin/Children Clive, looking great, a great action hero, a great cartoon character, representing all of us in his hatred of the loutishness of 2007 reality. But unlike us doing something about it. Bad title, good movie, and I am torn, after seeing it between joining the NRA, the next anti gun violence rally on the south side, Googling wet nurses, or renting The Best of Bugs.