If you're not into this kind of genre, you're going to hate this movie,' says Monica Bellucci of her latest film. 'It's a genre movie, and you have to like that genre to enjoy it.' That's a fair assessment of Shoot 'Em Up, a dumbed-down action film that draws its inspiration from the famous baby scene in John Woo Yu-sum's Hard Boiled. Teenage fans of action films and comic books will lap up the crude humour and gunplay. Others will probably dismiss it as a lame rip-off of Woo's 1980s work.
In Shoot 'Em Up, Bellucci plays a hooker who likes to give her clients something special. It's the latest in a slew of extreme roles that include a rape victim in the controversial revenge drama Irreversible, a flighty widow in Giuseppe Tornatore's Malena, and a seductive Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ.
She actively seeks out such roles, Bellucci says. 'I'm looking for risks. One reason I do this job is that I am trying to explore the dark side of human beings. I like to do films that are over the top. I like to portray extreme characters.'
The 42-year-old is Italy's favourite star. At last year's Rome Film Festival, the paparazzi paid her more attention than her contemporaries from Hollywood. She began her career as a model before moving into acting in the early 1990s. Her role in French film L'Appartement made her a star in Europe, and her cheeky performance in Malena led to international success. She's known to many in the US as a star of The Matrix, while arthouse fans know her from Gaspar Noe's hard-hitting Irreversible.
Bellucci has managed the rare feat of keeping a career going in both the US and European film industries. Equally unusual, she crosses from arthouse films to commercial movies whenever she chooses.
Bellucci finds her success in Hollywood surprising. 'I never made a choice to come to America.
