  Sultry Monica Bellucci stars as DQ, a hooker with a heart — and a baby — in the over-the-top action pile-up Shoot ’Em Up. '(Supplied photo)
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Even Bond takes a breather from killing to bed a babe now and again.
Not so Clive Owen's Mr. Smith who, mid-coitus with Monica Bellucci, massacres a small battalion of hitmen without, shall we say, breaking form. This miracle of choreography, which occurs midway through the action pile-up that is Shoot 'Em Up, marks an absurdist high point in what may be the most unremittingly absurd film in years. (It also serves as an excuse for Owen to deliver a one-liner that's as coarse as anything uttered by 007 at his cruelest.) That it dodges (barely) the whiff of misogyny is due largely -- in addition to the script's satirical bent -- to Bellucci. Unlike the wane, vapid Hollywood starlets who might have played her role, the gorgeous Italian-born actress is such a confident force, you can't imagine she's not in on the joke. (This somehow makes it okay.) And, what do you know, she was.
"When I read (the script) I thought it was completely over the top," she tells Sun Media. "It was so much fun and dark and dangerous. The film is comic. It's violent, of course, but it's rock and roll."
Of the sex scene, she praises both Owen and director Michael Davis, the neophyte filmmaker who also penned the script. "Clive was so protective and he's so intelligent. And Michael knew exactly what he wanted. Michael wasn't scared of anything."
In the made-in-Toronto thriller, now playing, Bellucci plays DQ -- that's short for Dairy Queen -- a lactating prostitute who aligns herself with Owen's rugged loner after he finds himself protecting a newborn baby from a cadre of assassins led by Paul Giamatti.
While skewed enough to distinguish it from the big-budget action norm, Shoot 'Em Up is still, in its bones, a noisy, bombastic -- as some critics might proclaim -- "thrill ride." That in itself makes it a departure from Bellucci's European work, including the forthcoming thriller Le Deuxieme Souffle, which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
"It's a different culture," she says of the more "artsy" films she makes in Italy and France.
Thus far, Bellucci has met with mixed success crossing over into the North American pop consciousness -- she's probably best recognized from The Matrix sequels and The Passion of the Christ, but the less said about Tears of the Sun and the Brothers Grimm, the better. Yet, even if she's not quite a household name, it hasn't kept her from being courted by Hollywood. "If the director wants you, they'll find an excuse (to cast you). DQ could've been French or Italian."
She calls the character "the one who brings the emotion (to the film) because she's the hooker with the heart of gold. She's also a mother, so she's passionate."
On this point, Bellucci can relate. She and husband Vincent Cassel (Ocean's Twelve) had a daughter in 2004. So far, she says, there has been no conflict balancing family life with her career. In fact, she explains, "It's easier for an actress because if you're a lawyer or a doctor, you can't bring the baby to the office with you. While we were shooting (Shoot 'Em Up), I was breastfeeding every two hours."
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