Why Realism is Killing Action Movies
Modern action films take themselves way too seriously. Enter Shoot ‘Em Up — a wild, chaotic, and hilariously over-the-top action movie that reminds us that action can still be fun. From gunfights during childbirth to Clive Owen's peak performance, this forgotten gem deserves your attention. Let’s talk about why.
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What is Shoot em Up?
Modern action films take themselves way too seriously. Enter Shoot ‘Em Up — a wild, chaotic, and hilariously over-the-top action movie that reminds us action can still be fun. From gunfights during childbirth to Clive Owen's peak performance, this forgotten gem deserves your attention. Let’s talk about why.
Shoot 'Em Up is a 2007 American action film written and directed by Michael Davis and produced by Montford/Murphy. It stars Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci and Stephen McHattie. In the film, Smith (Owen), a drifter and former black-ops soldier, rescues a newborn from being killed by assassin Hertz (Giamatti) and his henchmen. Smith enlists the help of prostitute Donna Quintano (Bellucci) to keep the baby safe as he unravels the conspiracy.
According to Davis, the film's idea came after he saw a gun-battle scene from Hard Boiled in which Chow Yun-fat rescues newborn babies from gangsters. Desiring to make an action film centring on guns, Davis expanded the idea into a script in 2000, accompanied by animated footage with 17,000 drawings for the action scenes. After a deal with New Line Cinema, filming began in Toronto. The music was composed by Paul Haslinger, while cinematography and editing were handled by Peter Pau and Peter Amundson respectively.
Shoot 'Em Up, before its September 2007 release, was previewed at that year's San Diego Comic-Con and received a positive response. Despite a mediocre commercial performance (recouping less than its budget), critical reception was mixed-to-favourable.
Davis had wanted to make an action film that focused on guns and was devoid of explosions. He conceived the film after seeing a scene from John Woo's Hard Boiled (1992), in which Chow Yun-fat rescues newborn babies from gangsters while engaged in a gunfight. Davis felt that the scene could be expanded into a feature film, a "gun-like" version of Run Lola Run (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 happened, causing him to shelve the project and return to making low-budget independent films.
During his subsequent years as an independent filmmaker, Davis started putting together an animatic of the script's action scenes using a Wacom tablet and the iMovie 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, a producer he went to film school with at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, 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 executives Jeff Katz and Cale Boyter liked it and passed it on to Toby Emmerich, who greenlit the project at the behest of New Line founder Bob Shaye.
Davis's first choice to play Smith was Clive Owen, who signed as the lead because the script impressed him. The role of Donna went to Monica Bellucci, 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, who usually played "nice guy" roles, against type to avoid the stereotype of a physically imposing villain, and because he believed Giamatti could deliver the duality of the role.
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