Variety this morning spends a lot of inches speculating on which of this week’s two R-rated, guy-centric movies will win the weekend box-office battle. Leaving aside the likelihood that actually Halloween will quite possibly carry over and beat both these poorly marketed September movies — or that The Brothers Solomon will come out of nowhere to take advantage of Kristen Wiig’s enormous fanbase — which of these movies has the best shot at gunning down the other and standing over its bullet-riddled corpse?
 3:10 to Yuma |
 Shoot 'Em Up |
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| Genre | Classy, gritty Western. | Intentionally funny action movie. |
| Metacritic score | 76 | 55 |
| Critical champion | Roger Ebert: "Restores the wounded heart of the Western." | Roger Ebert: "The most audacious, implausible, cheerfully offensive, hyperactive action picture I've seen since, oh, Sin City, which in comparison was a chamber drama." |
| Eye candy | Vinessa Shaw. | Clive Owen. |
| Hammy, eeeeevil supporting character | Ben Foster's semi-gay killer. | Paul Giamatti's totally insane assassin. |
| Literary forebear | Elmore Leonard. | "Neill Cumpston" from Ain't It Cool News. |
| Paul Dergarabedian quote, if it wins | "What audiences are really looking for this time of year is a good story." | "What audiences are really looking for this time of year is great action, without a lot of story to worry about." |
| Likelihood that your Vulture editors actually see it | Slim. | You will have to kill us to keep us away. |