Ian: You know Will, normally when we sit down to write these reviews, we're out to do nothing more than provide a brief character sketch, a sprinkling of plot and a hearty belly laugh or two. But today, it seems we have something of a vendetta brewing...

Will: You bet we do. First review of the year and we've already got some bones to pick with people. Specifically, a particular student newspaper and their review of a certain recent action movie called Shoot ‘Em Upstarring Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti.

Ian: The bones in contention center on a mistaken diagnosis of this film along the Oscar Committee’s Guidelines: a faulty approach for this kind of movie. This is taking the Snakes off the Plane, and shooting your clip of nine through the barrel of a Hammerson Desert Eagle.

Will: I'm pretty sure that if you go to Wake Forest, you should be able to read through the lines of this title. Since apparently some people have missed the tongue-in-cheekiness, let me spell it out: THIS IS NOT A SERIOUS MOVIE. JUST SIT BACK AND ENJOY ITS RIDICULOUSNESS. That being said, I believe we can sum up the movie's plot in one sentence. Ian, would you do the honors?

Ian: When the bad guys come for you, it's time to shoot 'em up.

Will: Very succinct. A man known only as Smith (Clive Owen) saves a pregnant woman's baby from a bad guy named Hertz (Paul Giamatti) and proceeds to kill everyone who comes after the child.

Ian: That is all on earth ye know, and all ye need to know. But honestly, the movie's title should make it clear that it is attempting to invoke all the traditions of the carbon-copy action movie, to aggrandize them, embolden them as much as a relatively CGI-free production job will allow, string together a non-stop pulse-rattling soundtrack, and then just let the pieces fall together ...and then shoot the pieces. Shoot all of them.

Will: And what else would you expect from writer/director Michael Davis? The man wrote the Double Dragon movie screenplay for crying out loud, I think he's earned the benefit of the doubt. At 80 minutes long, Davis gives the people just what they asked for— bullets, bodies and babies. Davis wisely steers away from a convoluted and drawn- out plot, relying smartly on the strength of Owen and Giamatti to carry the audience through the few non-shooting scenes.

Ian: And few they are. Owen is a caricature of himself: staring straight ahead, angry at the world, munching on a carrot. Okay, so the character does feature a couple of novel gimmicks, but more importantly he is a tremendously successful example of a few much older gimmicks; Owen is the quintessential Man With No Name, as well as the Man With a Gun, the Man With a Mission, and several other manly, impressive-sounding action clichés. In each of these roles, he fulfills the standards of the archetype.

Will: Some of my friends didn't believe that Paul Giamatti could pull off playing a bad guy, but I enjoyed the show he put on. Giamatti hams it up as only Giamatti can, and it fits in quite nicely with the overall tone of this movie. Monica Bellucci gets props as the requisite eye-candy of the movie, and I have to say that Owen and Bellucci have one of the greatest sex scenes I have ever seen.

Ian: Excluding your own home videos, I’m inclined to agree. Bellucci is pretty entertaining as far as foreign female foils go (ah, the joys of alliteration). Giamatti, as you've said, does some of the most legitimate acting of the film, and more importantly, is completely believable in the Smart Bad Guy role, pioneered, of course, by the legendary Alan Rickman as Hans in the first "Die Hard."

Will: Yep, but I feel like Professor Snape would be in some serious trouble messing around with Clive Owen. One of the nice little touches that our campus paper failed to comment on was the fact that you learn a lot about how to raise children in this film. For example, babies love heavy metal music, and the easiest way to transport them around is in a shopping bag. Also, why not just shoot off the umbilical cord instead of trying to tie it into a little knot? "Baby Geniuses" has got nothing on this movie.

Ian: I would like to see a movie where Professor Snape is approached by Metatron, the voice of god, telling him that he needs to raise a small neo-fascist Austrian baby. All three roles would be played by Alan Rickman. That's right —the baby too, with the film pitched as Look Who's Talking 8. I'm sure John Travolta is available for a cameo in between waiting for aliens, getting fat and having 70s style dance-offs with Kevin Bacon.

Will: Wow, a five movie rant. I feel like we made our point, though. Shoot ‘Em Up rocks and we give it three out of five stars, plus the extra two that our campus newspaper forgot. Way to go Clive Owen, you just got 5 stars, kind of! Any last words?

Ian: "In fact,"

Both: "Eat at Dari-O EVERY day!"