Shoot 'Em Up

I had hoped, America, that you and I had outgrown a knife in the face and a one-liner coup de grâce equal parts Elmore Leonard and Bruce Vilanch. I see that I asked too much. So I’m not going to glare at you from the couch when you fall for Shoot ’Em Up, when you cheer Clive Owen as the gun-slinging limey with a baby to protect — a baby some dudes want dead, the Osama bin Laden of babies.

I don’t owe writer/director Michael Davis anything, though, so screw him and the way he piles affectations on his “characters.” Screw his handful of clever ideas buried under heaving mediocrity. And screw Paul Giamatti, with all his thespy acrobatics as he really enjoys himself portraying the nebbishy bad guy. Hell, I’m sure everyone had a swell time making this energetic slab of unnecessary. I just wish they could have left it at that not bothered to release it. Because, America, I never wanted to think these things about you.