Shoot or Be Shot

While I am a long-time Shatner fan (since we used to watch Trek re-runs over the dinner hour in the early '70s), I cannot think of any possible reason why he wanted to do this film, whether for personal development or business reasons. Did he lose a bet?

As a movie fan, I like to appreciate the bad films along with the great ones. But "Shoot or be Shot" doesn't have any flair or funny bits, unintentional or not.

While unrated, there were no objectionable scenes (blink or you'll miss it nudity, cartoonish gunfire "violence" with the endless bullet gunfights), so one is led to believe that the producers merely wanted to save the fee required to get the MPAA to rate it. This will make its way to cable with barely 10 seconds edited out.

Of the eight people that were in the theatre with us, four of them left mid-way, muttering statements like "This is stupid".

Shatner plays an escaped mental patient who has been denied release because he views himself as a screenwriter. The examination board stamps his request "INSANE". He runs into a group of Z-grade moviemakers who "shoot on video because its 80% cheaper than film" and decides to force them to shoot his script at gunpoint. There are a few minor subplots that develop some of the secondary characters, but for the most part, that is the whole movie.

If you want to spend 90 minutes on a Shatner "art" film, see "Free Enterprise" instead, it is a much better film.

Some of the secondary actors try, really hard. And camera shots in the desert are quite lovely. Otherwise, this film is horrible.

William Shatner's character, Harvey, is an amateur screenwriter. He's also a psychopath, a man who quite literally escapes from a mental institution. Is the point of this film that amateur screenwriters are psychopaths? Harvey will do anything to get his script read and turned into a movie, even if that means taking a film crew hostage. Do amateur screenwriters ... grovel? Maybe they do.

The film's setup is way too long. We don't get to the point of the story until well into the second half. The first half darts and flits among assorted characters.

"Shoot Or Be Shot" is touted as a comedy, but I found it totally not funny. Dialogue contains no subtext. None of the characters are believable as real people. They're all stick figures that perform "action" in a way that resembles cartoon characters. Indeed, the film is basically a cartoon for adults: silly, inane, birdbrained.

I can understand why some actors are in this film. They need the money or the exposure. But what are insiders Shatner and Harry Hamlin doing here? Maybe Shatner wants more comedy roles. Is this the best he can do? Is Hamlin that desperate for money? He used to be a respected actor. What happened?

Even though the story is supposed to be a satire, it comes across more as a put-down of amateur screenwriters. Maybe that wasn't the intent. But that's certainly how the film can be interpreted. As such, the script was very, very poorly written.

OK, a film about a film that takes a crack at Video movie making could be entertaining. Could be, should be, funny, edgy, even controversial, or at least interesting, and yet... This film is the bizzaro negative version of that. Hamlin was entertaining as a 'B' Film producer. Shatner played crazy yet likable, and had all the best lines. The rest of the characters were boring, predictable, boring, underdeveloped, boring and boring. The production value was lame. You'll actually see the boom come down in one scene. The sound was awful in some of the scenes. Hey I'm a big fan of Shatner's and of Hamlin now, but their talents are wasted here. At least the story had a clichéd ending.

This movie spends most of its time preaching that it is the script that makes the movie, but apparently there was no script when they shot this waste of time! The trailer makes this out to be a comedy, but the film can't decide if it wants to be a comedy, a drama, a romance or an action film. Press releases indicated that Shatner and Hamlin made this movie because they loved the script (what were they thinking?). If you like William Shatner (I do) see "Free Enterprise" instead.

'The King of Comedy' meets 'Living in Oblivion'

Another of the small, but growing, number of Lo-No budget movies about Lo-No budget movie-making. Think of 'Living in Oblivion', 'The Independent', etc. etc. Aspiring writers are constantly told "write what you know about" so it's not surprising that aspirant movie writers write about aspirant movie writers and the frustrations they face.

The basic premise of this movie is simple, schlock movie producer wants to make an more upmarket "arty" movie, an aspiring director wants to make a serious anti - violence movie but with no script using an experimental improvised (very cheap) shooting method. The Producer's former leading lady, and lover, wants to prove she can really act, disguises herself, auditions and gets a part in the movie. Together with a small crew they head out to the desert to shoot the film. There they meet an escaped lunatic with a script in one hand and a gun in the other. He hijacks the crew and forces them to start shooting his script.

Except he doesn't. The whole film takes so long to get to the point where the story really starts, ie the moment where Shatner's maniac scriptwriter and the crew meet up, that there is no time left to tell it and the movie quickly descends into gun-play before abruptly ending in a short series of twee happy-ever-afters for all the characters.

Shatner gets all the good lines some of them are genuinely funny, the man has a nice comic touch, but an hour after watching the film I can't bring to mind any of them. A slight, light little film. It drags in places but doesn't outstay its welcome. It could have been better but easily could have been a hell of a lot worse.

In 2005 this film was released on DVD in the UK under the title "Shooting Stars" by Digiview Productions with a run time of 91 minutes 36 sec. Cert 12 Aspect ratio 4:3