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Michael Davis Dodges Bullets for Shoot 'Em Up
By Fred Topel | Image property of New Line Cinema.
Shoot 'Em Up
Michael Davis Talks Shoot 'Em Up
"It's funny, the original script had less one-liners," said Davis. "The original one that was always in there was, 'So much for wearing your seat belt.' We decided later on when we were going through making the movie, could we make it a little bit funnier? I didn't want to make it too quippy but we found that yeah, the movie needed those buttons at the end of the scene."
It is possible to go too far in that direction too, and after one rough cut, Davis realized he'd fallen into a pattern. "We ended up cutting out one of the one-liners because we didn't want the rhythm to be 'big action scene, one liner' every single time. It just seemed because as over the top as the movie is, I kind of was influenced by Bourne Supremacy. I kind of liked that documentary, hand held kind of style and not make it too much like a movie, crane jobs and all that. So not overloading it with funny quips sort of still felt within the milieu so we have them, but we didn't want to overdo it."
Of course, James Bond always had something clever to say. "Yeah, I did but I just want to be careful because I didn't want to overdo it, because if you overdo it, then there's already this over the top action but I didn't want the audience to be so far back watching it as an audience member. I like them to be sucked in."
Even villain Paul Giamatti gets some good lines, deconstructing some of the staples of action movies. When his entire squad of goons are eliminated by Owen, he wonders whether the hero is that good or the villains just suck.
"Once Paul Giamatti came on board, we realized we should write the script a little bit more for him and take advantage of him. That line was not there originally in the script, and then we went, ‘Uh, we have to give Paul more stuff.' We have sort of acknowledged that it is larger than life. I also tried to, with Paul, he’s always philosophizing about how he should do his job. [A henchman] ends up saying something, ‘Sure, do you want to go in there? It’s kind of dangerous, Smith might be in there.’ He says, ‘The leader that sits in the rear takes it in the rear.’ And then he ends up walking and he looks up at the stairwell and says, ‘Besides, violence is one of the most fun things to watch.’ And I think he is acknowledging the movie is fun to watch violence. So yeah, we did it in a couple other places."
Shoot 'Em Up opens Friday, September 7th. To see Michael Davis's original animated storyboards of the film's action scenes, visit the Shoot 'Em Up official website.
For the trailer, posters, stills and more movie info, go to the Shoot 'Em Up Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of New Line Cinema.
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