Shoot 'Em Up

Relax, switch your brain off, stick your tongue in cheek and settle down. If you can do all of these things, then Shoot Em Up is one of the most downright fun movies you're likely to have seen in some time. Just make sure you've adhered to the aforementioned checklist to the letter first.

Shamelessly over the top, and boasting a carnival of action sequences that each seemingly try to out do the other, the core of Shoot Em Up is Paul Giamatti (Sideways) and Clive Owen (The Inside Man) pitted against each other. In the middle is some nonsense over saving a newborn child, and Monica Belluci's call girl gets put into the mix too.

That said, all plot is thrown out of the window at every opportunity in favour of more action, upping the body count and - heck, why not? - a bit more action. And you know what? Shoot Em Up works, and it does so because everyone is in on it. This is no postmodern pretentious reworking: this is a fun, stylish action movie, and proud of it. It boasts a trimmed-to-the-wire running time, some outrageous sequences, a few bum notes but a whole lot of energy. And while it is, all considered, an excitable action movie and nothing more, Shoot Em Up is also uproarious entertainment, and the kind of film that Friday night was invented for. --Jon Foster