Shoot 'Em Up: All-action-no-plot in Cinematic Form

This film is fricking awesome!

If all-action-no-plot were a movie, it would be Shoot ‘Em Up. A non-stop sequence of gun battles, with a super-cool hero, suitably charismatic villain and gorgeous piece of token eye-candy - it’s perfect if you like that sort of thing.

Any film that begins to the soundtrack of Nirvana’s Breed is going to have adrenaline seeping from its every pore, and this has more testosterone than a tag-team of wrestlers killing deer with their bare hands while swigging diesel and chanting football songs. Like watching Spurs 6-4 Reading, this requires minimal cerebral activity and is just to be enjoyed, so crack open a beer and dig in.

Clive Owen is the mysterious “Smith”, introduced sitting at a bus stop chewing a carrot, when he sees a pregnant woman being followed by a man with a gun. Smith swears, follows them and uses his carrot to kill the man in gloriously graphic fashion, whilst delivering the obligatory one-liner. Credibility duly rolls its eyes, packs its bags and leaves the screen never to return, and the film does not let up thereafter.

Owen presumably starred in this soon after having been overlooked for the role of 007, and clearly enjoys himself immensely, playing a character patently bereft of the slightest glimmer of emotional depth. His droll wit is flicked out with insouciance, his hardened features making him surprisingly well-suited to playing a tough guy, and he attacks the role with the lazy pleasure one would derive from taking out all-comers in a game of paintball. Keanue Reeves take note – this is how to make a sullen hero likeable. Paul Giamatti just about cuts it as a pantomime villain in the Alan-Rickman-Die-Hard vein, and aside from Monica Bellucci - as the sassy, drop-dead gorgeous female interest - there aren’t many other characters on the screen for any length of time prior to a good old-fashioned bullet-riddling.

Plot? Are you kidding? It’s all action, no plot, so the side-issue of harvesting babies or some such nonsense is neither here nor there. This is all about lazily watching numerous novel ways to shoot 20 people whilst avoiding getting shot yourself.

If you liked Crank, you’ll like Shoot ‘Em Up. And if you didn’t like Crank, you’ve probably not read this far down the page…

Pietersen's Resignation A Blessing In Disguise

Nice to see England doing their utmost to throw away the Ashes some six months before it begins. It’s been a headline-writers dream, with the tabloids tripping over themselves at his priceless opportunity to trot out cricketing puns of every kind. England are stumped! KP has been caught out! The coach has been yorked! And so on, ad infinitum.Meanwhile, tea-sipping gentlefolk of the ilk of Jonathan Agnew have been positively tutting with incandescence at the manner in which the whole affair has been conducted. Some of the MCC members are even planning to vent their fury with letters to The Times, before settling back down for forty winks in the afternoon.

To be honest, I think this whole shambles may be a blessing in disguise. Pietersen’s talent is beyond doubt, and quite extraordinary, but cannot be separated from his ego and frankly annoying personality. The man’s craving for the limelight, frequent displays of petulance and mind-numbing, cliché-riddled interviews and press conferences suggest that he might not necessarily have the maturity to lead the team. In cricket particularly, the ability to keep your head while all about you are losing theirs is priceless. The sight of Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting losing his rag after being run out back in 2005 was most gratifying, but would also made it clear that the team was showing some signs of vulnerability. KP seems the sort to lose the plot in similar fashion when rattled - or indeed the sort to chase personal glory rather than the good of the team.

Within six months of Pitersen taking over it has emerged that there is a personality clash with the coach so large as to be insurmountable. I suspect that not all the players were necessarily enamoured of him either.

By contrast, his replacement Andrew Strauss comes across as a more intelligent, thoughtful and likeable chap, blessed with the capacity to think before speaking and acting. He seems less likely to rub team-mates the wrong way, and has captaincy experience at county and international level.

Another happy side-effect is that KP’s fit of pique has not extended to him picking up his ball and going home. No self-enforced sabbatical here, KP is keen to continue playing, and this will give England a chance to settle upon a batting order in the West Indies, before the serious stuff begins against the Aussies in the summer. All we need now is for Ian Bell to retire from Test cricket in an act of support/protest, and we’ll be ready to reclaim the Ashes.