You’ve seen the image of Daniel Radcliffe in a dressing gown wielding guns, you’ve seen the batty trailer featuring Radcliffe in some even more bizarre situations, and now the film responsible for both, Guns Akimbo is about to be unleashed. In Guns Akimbo Radcliffe plays Miles, a downtrodden loner who spends his evenings trolling people online. After insulting the wrong person he finds himself the latest contestant in an online deathmatch game Skizm. With guns surgically attached to his arms he must somehow avoid the authorities, win back his ex, and defeat the reigning champion Nix (Samara Weaving).
Guns Akimbo starts strong with Samara Weaving’s Nix immediately demonstrating her power. We join her as she effortlessly chops her way through body after body set to new versions of classic eighties tunes. Weaving has fast become the go-to woman for quirky indie genre films and it’s all too easy to see why here. Nix is a more physically demanding role than some of her previous ventures, but she proves that she can hold her own, her smackdown’s being some of the highlights of the films. The slight letdown is that despite her macho exterior and kooky – almost Harley Quinn grade – personality there’s not a lot to the character. This leaves Weaving see-sawing between punching people and cackling like a maniac, neither of which showcases her full range. It’s a similar fate for Radcliffe’s Miles. He’s the archetypal Scott Pilgrim character, the geek loner loser, and is never really developed more than that.
Where Guns Akimbo comes to life is within the ‘world’ of Skizm. Shot with all the aesthetics of a video game and yet takes place within the real world. The style falls somewhere between The Running Man‘s hyper-violence and Gamer‘s action pieces. The violence is ballsy and suitably cartoonish given the story. A classic case of a graphic novel bought to life, there’s more than enough for the eyes to feast on.
Guns Akimbo
Summary
Those that have seen director Jason Lei Howden’s previous movie Deathgasm will have a sense to what the tone of Guns Akimbo is. For those not initiated expect the unexpected, bucket loads of gore, an exceptional soundtrack and a lot of jet black humour. Borrowing heavily from the likes of Gamer, Crank, The Running Man, Dredd, and Deadpool, Guns Akimbo is a super-charged, hyper frenetic joy ride back to the days of violent action science-fiction
