Shoot 'Em Up (18)

Turbo-charged nonsense that does what it says in the title. Clive Owen plays the urban gunslinger, Paul Giamatti the implacable pursuer, Monica Bellucci the tart with a heart, all somehow involved in a preposterous plot about an orphaned baby and the American gun lobby.

Owen kills his first victim by skewering him with a carrot – a first, surely – but thereafter sticks to the more traditional method of blasting holes through them. Writer-director Michael Davis keeps up a Tarantinoid level of energy and irony, though the relentless violence, thrash-metal soundtrack and sardonic quips lower the spirits.