Bang, bang you're dead: Clive Owen romps his way through Shoot 'Em Up, an outrageously shoddy, audaciously choreographed exploitation flick that loves the smell of gunpowder in the morning. Writer/director Michael Davis pulls out an arsenal of guns, lots of guns, for a movie that makes little sense but brainstorms action sequences so inventive they look like they've been designed by ballistics experts high on cordite. It's over-the-top, feels over-long (even at eighty-six minutes) and could well be proof that too much violence really is bad for you...

Shoot 'Em Up opens with Owen's drifter Mr Smith sitting at a bus stop munching on a carrot (!), then spirals into carnage as a team of assassins try to off a pregnant woman. Smith becomes a reluctant hero, delivering the baby while blasting disposable bad guys, his spent shell cases bounce off the pregnant gal's belly. It's utterly ridiculous but also astonishing in its sheer visual verve - and it sets the tone for a supercharged exploitation movie that the director pitched to studios as "John Woo's wet dream". Still, not even Woo could have fantasised a sex scene during a shoot out...

"A THROWAWAY FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE"

Literally left holding the baby, Owen finds himself on the run, sharing childcare with a lactating prostitute (Monica Bellucci) and trying to stay one step ahead of Paul Giamatti's hilariously conniving villain. Cheesy one-liners of '80s vintage and cheap-looking effects simply underline what you've already guessed: this is a throwaway Friday night movie with its tongue and a .45 automatic wedged firmly in its cheek. By the time Davis stages a risible skydiving gunfight in mid-air, it's obvious that Shoot 'Em Up has shot its load.

Shoot 'Em Up is out in the UK on 14 September 2007.