Shoot 'Em Up: It's just what is says - and it's a hoot

Okay, look: The movie "Shoot 'Em Up" is not for everybody. It's rated "R" and deserves it. "R plus" is more like it. It is violent, and then more violent. It is rude; it is crude; it is a story of good bad men and bad good men and hookers with a heart.

If any of this makes you squeamish, go see something else.

I loved it. What a hoot. It's coming to Sisters this week.

Teens in the row near us were offended at our laughter. I don't think they got the joke. This movie is a spoof, a great spoof, of all of those films about urban adventure that take themselves and their special effects too seriously. Movies that replace plot and acting with plot lines developed to showcase flying car wrecks and rooftop gymnastics.

Anything with Bruce Willis comes to mind, and that last Bourne, too.

And like all great spoofs, the acting in "Shoot 'Em Up" is far better than that in the movies it makes fun of. The effects are all the better for being completely over the top. The sex is shocking, and then, shockingly funny. Don't go if this bothers you because, like a stand up routine by a very funny and controversial comic, they know it might bother you and they just don't care.

That makes it even more funny.

The film is nearly comic book in its color and scenes, feeling at times like Frank Miller's "Sin City" and "300." It is no more real but less of a caricature.

But performances by Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci and Clive Owen are phenomenal. Giamatti is brilliant as the bad guy with a life: nine-to-five evil with family obligations. Bellucci is sultry and solid and is in scenes that will set the straight-laced to howling outrage. Owen is his taciturn best, wanting nothing more than to be left alone at his bus stop.

"Shoot 'Em Up" is not just violent and sexy. It wallows in movie-style violence. It luxuriates in violence; it is about nothing else but violence. It is exactly what its title implies. And it is very funny, but only if you like that sort of humor.

If you don't, stay away.