''Shoot 'Em Up'' is a 2007 American
romantic action thriller film written and directed by
Michael Davis. It stars
Clive Owen
Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series '' Chancer'' from 1990 to 1991. He received critical acclaim for his work in the film '' Close ...
,
Paul Giamatti
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...
,
Monica Bellucci
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (; born 30 September 1964) is an Italian actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model, modelling for Dolce & Gabbana and Dior, before making a transition to Italian films and later American and French ...
, and
Stephen McHattie
Stephen McHattie Smith (born February 3, 1946)Other sources cite 1945, 1947, and 1948. is a Canadian actor. Since beginning his professional career in 1970, he has amassed over 200 film and television credits. He won the Genie Award for Best Sup ...
. The film follows Smith (Owen), a drifter who rescues a newborn from being killed by assassin Hertz (Giamatti) and his henchmen. Smith flees from the gang, enlisting the help of prostitute Donna Quintano (Bellucci) to keep the baby safe as he unravels the conspiracy.
According to Davis, the idea for the film came about after he saw a gun-battle scene from
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (; born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly-influential figure in the action film genre. He was a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gun fu ...
's critically acclaimed ''
Hard Boiled'' in which
Chow Yun-fat
Chow Yun-fat (born 18 May 1955), previously known as Donald Chow, is a Hong Kong actor. He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the five Hong Kong action heroic bloodshed films: ''A Better Tomorrow'', ''A Be ...
rescues newborn babies from gangsters. Desiring to make an action film centering on guns, he expanded the idea into a screenplay in 2000, accompanied by an animated footage with 17,000 drawings for the action scenes. After a deal with
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after acq ...
, filming began in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
. The film was photographed by Hong Kong cinematographer
Peter Pau
Peter Pau Tak-Hei (, born 1952) is a Hong Kong cinematographer and film director, best known to western audiences as for his work on ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 2000. One of Ho ...
.
Before its September 2007 release, the film was previewed at that year's
San Diego Comic-Con
San Diego Comic-Con International is a comic book convention and nonprofit multi-genre entertainment event held annually in San Diego, California since 1970. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is co ...
and received a positive response. Despite a mediocre commercial performance (recouping less than its budget), critical reception to the film was largely favorable.
Plot
At a bus stop in a rough part of town, a carrot-eating
drifter
A drifter is a vagrant who moves from place to place without a fixed home or employment.
Drifter(s) or The Drifter(s) may also refer to:
Films and television Films
* ''The Drifter'' (1917 film), an American film directed by Fred Kelsey
* ''Th ...
and military veteran named Smith sees a pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth while fleeing a
hitman
Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...
. Following them into a warehouse, Smith kills the hitman by stabbing him in the face with a carrot and retrieves the woman's pistol. As more thugs, led by a ruthless man named Hertz, arrive, the woman goes into labor and Smith delivers her baby boy during a shootout. Pursued by Hertz, the woman is shot dead; Smith narrowly escapes with the newborn. Leaving the baby in a park, Smith hopes someone will adopt the child, but a passing woman is killed with a shot from Hertz's sniper rifle. Realizing that Hertz is trying to kill the baby, Smith saves him and tries unsuccessfully to leave him with a
prostitute
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
named Donna Quintano.
Hertz soon arrives at the brothel and tortures Donna for information; Smith returns and kills Hertz's henchmen. After a brief confrontation, Smith shoots Hertz and leaves with Donna and the baby. Having secretly worn a
bulletproof vest
A bulletproof vest, also known as a ballistic vest or a bullet-resistant vest, is an item of body armor that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the torso from firearm-fired projectiles and fragmentation from explosions. T ...
, however, Hertz is alive albeit wounded. Taking Donna to his hideout, Smith realizes that the baby (whom he names Oliver) stops crying when he hears heavy metal music; he concludes that Oliver's mother lived near a heavy metal club. Pursued by Hertz, Smith shoots his way out of the hideout, and he and Donna head to a nearby club. Above the club they discover an apartment with medical equipment and two dead, pregnant women; Smith concludes that the women were all impregnated with one man's sperm in order to give birth to matching
bone marrow
Bone marrow is a semi-solid tissue found within the spongy (also known as cancellous) portions of bones. In birds and mammals, bone marrow is the primary site of new blood cell production (or haematopoiesis). It is composed of hematopoietic ce ...
donors.
While they are having a chat in a motel room, Smith and Donna are attacked by masked men, where he notices that his assailants' weapons are Hammerson models, unavailable to the public. Smith brings Donna and Oliver to a war museum and hides them in a
M24 Chaffee
The M24 Chaffee (officially Light Tank, M24) was an American light tank used during the later part of World War II; it was also used in post–World War II conflicts including the Korean War, and by the French in the War in Algeria and the Firs ...
tank for safekeeping. Smith infiltrates the Hammerson factory and hears Hertz and Hammerson saying that they do not want the next president to repeal
the right to bear arms
The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, including securi ...
. He also notices that Hammerson owns a
German Shepherd dog
The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899.
It was originally bred as a herding dog, for he ...
named Duchess. Smith booby-traps the facility with an array of firearms, allowing him to kill the thugs and escape. During a shootout, Hertz reveals that he had conducted an investigation about Smith's identity and it turned out Smith is a former Army Ranger whose wife and kid were killed in a shootout in a burger joint. Smith sees an article about Senator Rutledge, a
Democratic presidential candidate who favors stricter gun laws. Smith deduces that Rutledge has cancer and requires a bone-marrow transplant.
Due to which, Rutledge had impregnated the woman with his sperm (and why Hertz and Hammerson want Oliver dead). If the infants die, the senator will not receive a transplant and would be unable to run for president. Smith tells Donna to leave town and contacts one of Rutledge's henchmen to request an appointment. Meeting on an airplane, the senator confirms Smith's suspicions and Smith notices dog hair on Rutledge's trousers. Deducing that the hair belongs to Duchess and that the senator made a deal with Hammerson, Smith takes Rutledge hostage. Hertz appears and reveals that he agreed to help Rutledge find a bone-marrow donor, on the condition that Rutledge protects Hertz's constitutional right to bear arms when elected president. Smith kills the senator, whose assassination he explains "will cause public outrage and trigger immense support" for his
gun control
Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians.
Most countries have a restrictive firearm guiding policy, with on ...
proposals.
Smith parachutes from the airplane and kills several pursuing henchmen, but is himself shot and collapses after he lands, where he awakens in Hammerson's mansion; Hertz tortures him, breaking his fingers in an attempt to learn where Smith sent Donna and Oliver. As Hertz prepares to cut Smith's eyes, Smith breaks free and kills Hammerson and several thugs. Cornered and struggling to use his gun, Smith places live bullets between his broken fingers and detonates them with a fireplace, critically wounding Hertz. As they grab pistols and struggle, Smith fires first and kills Hertz. Smith boards a bus with Duchess and stops at an ice-cream parlor where Donna works as a waitress while watching Oliver. Surprised to see each other alive, he and Donna kiss passionately. A group of amateur armed robbers suddenly enters the parlor; his hands in bandages, Smith shoots them by using a carrot to pull the trigger.
Cast
The protagonist, known only as Smith,
is an homage to the
Man with No Name
The Man with No Name ( it, Uomo senza nome) is the antihero character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "''Dollars Trilogy''" of Italian Spaghetti Western films: ''A Fistful of Dollars'' (1964), '' For a Few Dollars More'' (1965), ...
of
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone (; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter credited as the pioneer of the Spaghetti Western genre and widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cin ...
's
Spaghetti Western
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
s.
Smith's misanthropy derived from writer-director
Michael Davis' frustration when his 1989 script about
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Instit ...
failed to materialize as a feature film.
His research about Kinsey and human sexuality in general inspired the character of Donna Quintano, a
gold-hearted prostitute and Smith's eventual love interest.
Hertz, a former
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
profiler who lives a double life as an assassin and a family patriarch, pursues Smith. According to co-producer
Susan Montford
Susan Montford is a Scottish filmmaker living in Los Angeles. She has produced, written and directed movies that range from cult hits to blockbusters.
She was born in Glasgow, Scotland. She is related to the Scottish football commentator Arthur ...
, the antagonist was modeled after the
BTK Killer.
Hertz's feud with Smith has been compared to that of
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the '' Looney Tunes'' and '' ...
and
Elmer Fudd
Elmer J.''Hare Brush'' (1956) Fudd is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. '' Looney Tunes''/'' Merrie Melodies'' series and the archenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheo ...
in ''
Looney Tunes
''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation. '' because Smith (like Bugs) spends considerable time eating carrots in the film.
Davis acknowledged that the ''Looney Tunes'' reference was deliberate.
Production
![John Woo Cannes 2005](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/John_Woo_Cannes_2005.jpg)
Davis had wanted to make an
action film
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...
which focused on guns and was devoid of explosions.
He conceived the film after seeing a scene from
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (; born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly-influential figure in the action film genre. He was a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gun fu ...
's critically acclaimed action film ''
Hard Boiled'' (1992), in which star
Chow Yun-fat
Chow Yun-fat (born 18 May 1955), previously known as Donald Chow, is a Hong Kong actor. He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the five Hong Kong action heroic bloodshed films: ''A Better Tomorrow'', ''A Be ...
rescues newborn babies from gangsters while engaged in a gunfight. Davis felt that the scene could be expanded into a feature-length film,
a "gun-like" version of ''
Run Lola Run
''Run Lola Run'' (german: Lola rennt}, lit. "Lola Runs") is a 1998 German experimental thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer. The story follows a woman named Lola (Franka Potente) who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutschmarks in twenty min ...
'' (1998).
By 2000, Davis had begun writing the screenplay;
when the script was finished, however, studios refused to get it made after the
Columbine High School massacre
On April 20, 1999, a school shooting and attempted bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, 12th grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. ...
happened, causing him to shelve the project and return to making low-budget
independent film
An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...
s.
During his subsequent years as an independent filmmaker, Davis started putting together an
animatic
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the ...
of the script's action scenes using a
Wacom
() is a Japanese company headquartered in Kazo, Saitama, Japan, that specializes in manufacturing graphics tablets and related products.
Headquarters locations
The main headquarters are located in Kazo, Saitama, Japan. Its office in the USA ...
tablet and the
iMovie
iMovie (known at times as iMovie HD) is a preinstalled video editing application developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices.
It was originally released in 1999 as a Mac OS 8 application bundled with the first FireWire-enabled ...
app.
The animatic, which he made originally as a hobby, became his
pitch animation in finding a
producer for the project.
He sent the script to
Don Murphy
Don Murphy (born April 1967) is an American film producer who produced ''Natural Born Killers'', ''Real Steel'', '' Splice'' and many other films, including ''Transformers'' and '' Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen''.
Personal background
B ...
, a producer he went to film school with at the
USC School of Cinematic Arts
The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses seven academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Sc ...
, and Murphy as well as co-producers Susan Montford and Rick Benattar enjoyed it.
Murphy, Montford and Benattar also saw the film's potential as a big-budget production, so they sent the animatic to major film studio
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after acq ...
.
New Line executives
Jeff Katz
Jeff Katz is an American film producer and comic book author.
Early life
Katz is from Franklin, Michigan. He started a pen-pal relationship with New Line Cinema founder and future boss Bob Shaye after meeting Shaye's father at a dinner party ...
and
Cale Boyter
Cale Boyter is an American film producer. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Picture for the film ''Dune''.
Selected filmography
* '' Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd'' (2003)
* ''Elf'' (2003)
* ''The Butterfly ...
liked it
and they passed it on to
Toby Emmerich
Toby Emmerich (born February 8, 1963), is an American producer, film executive, and screenwriter. He has been with Warner Bros. for much of his career, and formerly served as the chairman of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group.
Biography
Emmerich w ...
, who
greenlit
To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead".
Film industry
In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...
the project at the behest of New Line founder
Bob Shaye
Robert Kenneth Shaye (born March 4, 1939) is an American businessman, film producer, actor, director, and writer. He is the founder of New Line Cinema, a film production studio that distributed films such as ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'', ''Tee ...
.
Davis's first choice to play Smith was
Clive Owen
Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series '' Chancer'' from 1990 to 1991. He received critical acclaim for his work in the film '' Close ...
, who signed as the lead because the script impressed him.
The role of Donna went to
Monica Bellucci
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (; born 30 September 1964) is an Italian actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model, modelling for Dolce & Gabbana and Dior, before making a transition to Italian films and later American and French ...
, who liked the script and the character: an independent woman who "does dangerous, dark dirty things in a playful way".
The multilingual Bellucci dubbed herself in the film's French and Italian versions. Davis cast
Paul Giamatti
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...
, who usually played "
nice guy
"Nice guy" is an informal term, commonly used with either a literal or a sarcastic meaning, for a man.
In the literal sense, the term describes a man who is agreeable, gentle, compassionate, sensitive and vulnerable. The term is used both po ...
" roles, against
type to avoid the stereotype of a physically imposing villain, and because he believed Giamatti could deliver the duality of the role.
''Shoot 'Em Up'' was produced on a budget of $39 million.
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...
took place in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
and lasted fifty-five days,
with Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
's Peter Pau
Peter Pau Tak-Hei (, born 1952) is a Hong Kong cinematographer and film director, best known to western audiences as for his work on ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 2000. One of Ho ...
serving as cinematographer. Before filming, Owen and Giamatti were trained in firearms. Although he found the stunts physically demanding, Owen resolved to perform most of them himself. In the skydiving scene, he was aided by a Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Ju ...
safety harness. Eighty firearms were used during production, and $70,000 of the film's budget was allocated for 6,000 squibs.
Music
The score for ''Shoot 'Em Up'' was composed by Paul Haslinger
Paul Haslinger (born 11 December 1962) is an Austrian musician and composer. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Life and career
Early life
Haslinger was born and raised in Linz, Austria. He attended high school at Kollegium Aloisi ...
and recorded at NRG Recording Studios
NRG Recording Studios is a recording facility located in North Hollywood, California, that was created by producer and mixer Jay Baumgardner in 1992.
Facilities
The facility consists of three studio consoles:
*Studio A console: custom vintage N ...
in North Hollywood, California
North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North H ...
. It was released on CD and as a digital download on August 28, 2007, by Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, owned by Concord Music Group and distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums, as well as newer r ...
. A soundtrack album of nu metal
Nu metal (sometimes stylized as nü-metal, sometimes called aggro-metal) is a subgenre of that combines elements of heavy metal music with elements of other music genres such as hip hop, alternative rock, funk, industrial, and grunge. Nu met ...
and rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
songs by various artists was made available on February 12, 2008.
Marketing
In July 2007, ''Shoot 'Em Up'' was publicized with a guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. It is a type of publicity. The term was popularized by Jay Conrad Levinson's 198 ...
campaign by the London-based agency New Media Maze. The campaign included a viral video
A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...
and a website selling bogus items ranging from bulletproof
Bulletproofing is the process of making an object capable of stopping a bullet or similar high velocity projectiles (e.g. shrapnel). The term bullet resistance is often preferred because few, if any, practical materials provide complete protectio ...
strollers to riot helmets for infants. A video was released on YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
in which the company claimed to test the bulletproof stroller by shooting at it with a submachine gun
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an autom ...
while a baby was in it. The baby was then removed from the stroller unharmed. The hoax campaign was taken seriously by global media and the blogging community; ''Aftonbladet
''Aftonbladet'' (, lit. "The evening paper") is a Swedish daily newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. It is one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries.
History and profile
The newspaper was founded by Lars Johan H ...
'', Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
's largest evening tabloid, carried the story on its online edition for some time.
In November 2007, two ads that showed Owen and Giamatti holding guns were banned in the United Kingdom by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the grounds that they had "glamorized and glorified gun crime" and "were offensive and insensitive toward families directly affected by gun crime". At the time of the ruling, it was also reported that gun violence in the UK was on the rise.
Release
Although ''Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' reported a planned release during the 2006 holiday season, ''Shoot 'Em Up'' was previewed in September of that year. The film was released in American theaters on September 7, 2007. It was released on the same day in Canada, opening on 235 screens against '' 3:10 to Yuma''. Audience response to a screening at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con
San Diego Comic-Con International is a comic book convention and nonprofit multi-genre entertainment event held annually in San Diego, California since 1970. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is co ...
was positive.
''Shoot 'Em Up'' opened in fourth place on its first weekend, earning $5,716,139 at 2,108 locations. Overall, the film grossed $12,807,139 over six weeks in North American theaters and $26,820,641 worldwide. It was regarded as a box-office failure
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
, recouping less than its budget.
The film's DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
versions were released in January 2008 by New Line Home Entertainment
New Line Home Entertainment (formerly known as New Line Home Video) was the home entertainment distribution arm of New Line Cinema, founded in 1990. According to New Line's website, ''Misery'' was the first New Line Home Video release.
It was ...
with a behind-the-scenes
In film, cinema, behind-the-scenes (BTS), also known as the making-of, the set, or on the set, is a type of documentary film that features the Filmmaking#Production, production of a film or television program. This is often referred to as the E ...
featurette titled "Ballet of Bullets", 17 minutes of animatics and audio commentary from director Michael Davis, trailers and deleted scenes. New Line released another DVD and Blu-ray of the film in a two-disc version in August 2011.
Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gives the film an approval rating of 67%, with an average rating of 6.15/10, based on reviews from 161 critics. The website's "Critics Consensus" for the film reads, "As preposterous and over-the-top as ''Shoot 'Em Up'' may be, its humor and non-stop action make for a very enjoyable film." On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
it has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.
Background
Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
during its opening weekend gave the film an average grade of "B−" on a scale ranging from A+ to F.
Peter Travers
Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...
rated the film 3 out of 4 stars for ''Rolling Stone'', calling it "eighty-two minutes of hardcore pow. ..You'll be exhilarated – also exhausted." Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
for the ''Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' scored the film 3 out of 4 stars, comparing it favorably with ''Sin City
''Sin City'' is a series of neo-noir comics by American comic book writer-artist Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in ''Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special'' (April 1991), and continued in ''Dark Horse Presents'' #51â ...
'' as "the most audacious, implausible, cheerfully offensive, hyperactive action picture e had
E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plur ...
seen". Frank Scheck
Frank Scheck is an American film critic. He is best known for his reviews in the ''New York Post'' and ''The Hollywood Reporter''. He formerly edited ''STAGES Magazine'' and worked as a theater critic for the ''Christian Science Monitor
Ch ...
in ''The Hollywood Reporter'' called it a "ramped-up action movie on steroids" that "makes '' Hard Boiled'' look restrained". Ebert extended his praise toward the film's acting, calling Owen's character sympathetic and Giamatti's "surprisingly, teeth-gnashingly evil". Scheck complimented Owen's "low-rent James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
" performance, and was delighted to see Giamatti cast against his usual "nerdy" on-screen persona.
A. O. Scott gave the film a scathing review for ''The New York Times'', calling it "a worthless piece of garbage" and that it was one of several "witless, soulless, heartless movies that mistake noise for bravura and tastelessness for wit". Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter (born March 25, 1946, Kansas City, Missouri) is an American novelist, essayist, and film critic.
Life and career
Hunter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His father was Charles Francis Hunter, ...
in ''The Washington Post'' said the film "is just gunfights strung together, without a whisper of coherence or meaning. The fights are staged so that they all look the same, and the principle is always the same: The gunman's multiple antagonists never hit, and he never misses." James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli (born September 25, 1967) is an American film critic and former engineer. His reviews are mainly published on his blog ''ReelViews.'' Approved as a critic by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, he has published two collections of r ...
gave the film a mixed review, saying that while it delivered gunfights as advertised, he complained that it "pretty much consists of shoot-outs and chases overtaking each other like waves rolling onto a beach, each more over-the-top than its predecessor". Berardinelli scored the film 2 out of 4 stars, writing that he "like the audacity and its willingness to push the envelope beyond the limits of good taste. In the end, it's a little too long and uneven to recommend outright, but ewon't deny having enjoyed aspects of what Davis is offering."
In 2016, ''Shoot 'Em Up'' made the list of "25 great action films that are 90 minutes or under" compiled by Nick Horton of Den of Geek
''Den of Geek'' is a US and UK-based website covering entertainment with a focus on pop culture
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gan ...
. Rotten Tomatoes ranked ''Shoot 'Em Up'' at 111 on its list of the "140 Essential Actions Movies To Watch".
References
External links
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{{Michael Davis
2007 action films
2007 films
American action thriller films
Films about babies
Films directed by Michael Davis
Films shot in Toronto
Films scored by Paul Haslinger
New Line Cinema films
Films produced by Don Murphy
2000s English-language films
2000s American films