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Reel Toronto: Shoot ‘Em Up
Toronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
We darn near didn’t know what the heck to make of Shoot ‘Em Up. Here’s a movie that’s basically an absurd, over-the-top action movie that seems to have a sense of humour about itself. So, is it an ironic send-up of such films or could they just not figure out what they were really going for? We’re still not sure, even though it starts with a dude killing another dude with a carrot.
Equally baffling is the movie taking place in the worst-disguised Toronto we’ve seen this side of Short Circuit 2.
You want obvious street signs? We’ve got those, as in this chase along Adelaide.
You want to see skyline shots that make virtually no effort whatsoever to hide that their generic American city is actually Toronto? How about this one, from over the portlands, with a clearly visible Redpath Sugar and Jarvis Street Loblaws…
…and this one, from near the convention centre.
Oh well, you say, at least they didn’t make the cardinal sin of showing the CN Tower, right? Well, how about this!?
And this!
We tend to go on and on about how much they shoot films in the Distillery District, but under the Gardiner is pretty common too. We know we saw it in The Incredible Hulk and Blues Brothers 2000, and here it is again…
…and again, by Cherry Street, apparently.
Did they make ANY effort at all to pretend this wasn’t Toronto? Well, they did disguise the Ricoh Coliseum as a “Miltary Annex.”
And this? We’re just throwing this in because we love Paul Giamatti, and so you know about what level of humour this flick’s operating at. Quelle disappointment.
We’re not asking for the moon, Hollywood! All we’re saying is if you’re going to shoot here and show the city, and it’s taking place in some generic place anyway, why not just set the darned thing in Toronto? Must we be forced to live with The Love Guru as the sole example of what we’re talking about? Surely you owe us a solid after all the TV movies we’ve given you!