Reviews

Wow. Shoot 'Em Up is exactly what it claims to be. An action movie. Balls to the wall, no holds barred, but nothing more. And that's exactly what you get. Don't go expecting high art...SEU doesn't take itself seriously enough for that. But that's exactly what makes it work. It KNOWS it's over the top, and doesn't try to hide it. Clive Owen's Smith character is the Bugs Bunny to Paul Giamatti's Hurtz Elmer Fudd. The film takes the best cartoon elements, makes them flesh, and still kicks in that over the top craziness. Bad puns that are so bad they're good, action sequences that there just for the sake of having an action sequence, and the wildest sex scene ever...it's amazing. It's the funniest, coolest, most amazing mix of stunts, bad one liners and paper think plot lines.

You get everything you expect from Shoot 'Em Up...and it's all great.

Vulgar is the story of William, a down-on-his-luck schlub, played by Brian O'Halloran ("Dante" of Clerks) whose over-abusive mother doesn't appreciate him as he constantly tries to make ends meet financially as a party clown named Flappy, who hasn't had much luck getting jobs or getting paid. His last job he refused the money on, due to a domestic dispute cutting his performance short (he's a nice guy). In an effort to make more money from a cleintelle he doesn't usually get, he spawns the idea of being a prank clown for bachelor parties, dressing up in fishnets and other ladies garments as Vulgar (the View Askew film logo on which this movie was based). On his first and only gig, he is knocked out by a father and his two sons who then proceed to, well, rape and demean poor William. The scene itself is not that inherantly graphic, but just the ideas, as well as the excellent performances of O'Halloran and the father, make it that much more disturbing (many people who were at this screening left). William, obviously, is horribly upset and damaged by this, and O'Halloran translates that in possibly his best performance on film to date as he tries to put himself back together both emotionally and physically. To try and move on from this, William attemps to go back to his normal routine of being the party clown, Flappy. At his next gig (a return to the last party) the birthday girl's father has kidnapped her. Not wanting to see another innocent harmed the way he was, and furthur more driven by the fact that the innocent is a child, Flappy rushes the father and saves the day, making him a national hero. Seeing Flappy on a variety of news shows, a TV exec pitches the idea for Flappy's Funhouse. Now William is a wealthy television star, but his past comes back to haunt him, as the father and his sons reveal they video taped the rape. You'll just have to wait and see what happens next. Possibly the best movie about raping a clown all year, if not ever