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Given the choice, I prefer my action films to be as brutally realistic as possible, but if film-makers are insistent about going down the cartoonish violence route, they might as well go the whole nine yards, as in Shoot 'Em Up, a relentlessly over the top slam-bang action film that starts out all guns blazing and doesn't call it quits until writer/director Michael Davis has thrown every possible crazy idea he can come up with onto the screen.

Shoot 'Em' up remains a classy and often clever piece of film-making despite its highly preposterous plot: Davis's effective direction is cool and slick without resorting to migraine inducing visual gimmickry. Stars Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci effortlessly ooze sex appeal and charisma, whilst Paul Giamatti, as ultra-vicious killer Hertz, is utterly loathsome.

There are some inspired visual gags for the eagle-eyed; and the never-ending gun-play is both brilliantly inventive and absolutely blistering. Hell, the film even manages to deliver an ironic anti-gun message whilst all the bullets are flying and people are dying.