Guns Akimbo is a 2019 New Zealand action comedy film written and directed by Jason Lei Howden. It stars Daniel Radcliffe (Miles), Samara Weaving (Nix) and Ned Dennehy (As Riktor (bad guy)). It centers around a guy who finds himself as an unwilling participant in a life or death game that streams online. Guns Akimbo (2019) movie review follows
This is a really fun movie to watch. There is a lot of action and while some of it is a bit too fast and sometimes even shaky to a point where you can’t focus on it for long, it is mostly fun action style that manages to keep me focused for the entire movie. With the action comes blood and this movie has a lot of it. Effects were practical and CG but it looked like a mix of both good blood spatter and mediocre one. There were plenty of car chases and explosions as characters tried to find a new way to outsmart each other.
One of the things that surprised me about the movie is that I liked everybody in it. We are supposed to like the hero of the movie and Radcliffe is awesome in it. However, I was interested in everybody, especially the main character’s girlfriend and the villain of the movie. Speaking of a villain, he was a mix between a bumbling idiot and a “I have to look like I am evil to maintain my authority among my peers” type of guy. Fun to watch. A lot of the time he acted like a generic villain. However, the actor made it work by acting in an over the top way that doesn’t came off as silly. You can clearly see that everybody was having a ton of fun just goofing off and killing each other.
As for our main guy, he is really likable. He’s just an average guy but you can see that he is down on his luck. He also really hates his boss. The fact that he is not stupid and also likeable is how he is able to survive the whole game. He is scared but also not overly stupid and things tend to work out for him for most part. I wouldn’t say he is average Joe but he definitely comes off as somebody who doesn’t turn heads. This is especially true right before he joins the game. However, this movie paints him as both a loser and a hero. At the same time the movie makes a social commentary on how much our society loves violence and how anybody can be violent given the right circumstances.
The editing in the movie is weird. Not to say it is bad but sometimes the camera moves way too fast or cuts way too much. It makes it hard for us to observe the action and what is happening. The movie plays like a surreal glorified world of violence that is exaggerated by bright colors, fast movements, and blood thirsty viewers who look comical when observing the fights of “Schism”. I am sure there is more to it than this but you can’t have over the top movies and also have a serious message you want to get across.
Overall the movie was a ton of fun. There is a setup for a sequel and while I don’t usually like sequels or endorse them, this time I am looking forward to it, if it ever happens. Tons of gore, good characters, cliche and sometimes fun (albeit also immature) humor/dialogue and good acting puts this movie above many others in similar genre.
Thanks for reading my Guns Akimbo (2019) movie review 🙂
