REVIEW #67 GUNS AKIMBO (2019)

Guns Akimbo is a quirky comedy/action film directed by Jason Lei Howden and follows Miles a video game developer who is the latest victim of Skizm, a death match streaming site. Given a simple choice, kill the top Killer Nix or die himself, he soon realises that running away isn’t going to save him.

CAST & THE ACTING 

Daniel Radcliffe leads the film, playing Miles and he delivers a great performance. It’s different to anything we have seen from him before and that has seemed to be the case with most of his films since Harry Potter. Each film since has seemed to showcase the range of skill he has as an actor and this is no different. It’s a chaotic performance with a huge injection of comedy but he pulls it off well. Samara Weaving plays Nix and she also does well at delivering that chaotic energy as a viscous killer and I would say that she is the main source of comedy throughout the film and credit to her because she was hilarious! It’s not a cast full of big names, as you would expect from a film with a small £15 million budget and apart from those two mentioned above there wasn’t any more performances worth mentioning really. 

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

The storyline is rather silly, Miles leaves a troll comment on a social media site and consequently the people he trolled paid him a visit, knocked him unconscious and bolted akimbo pistols to his hands. Once he awakes he is told he is now taking part in a streamed death match where he must kill the top mercenary to survive! I think the silliness is very much intended and it therefore creates plenty of funny moments in the film and to be honest it does work. It’s not the most imaginative plot because I have seen similar films before and it’s certainly not going to win any awards for its storyline but it does make for an entertaining 90 minutes. The character Nix was a great part of the film and the writers done well to make her hilarious in pretty much every scene. We didn’t see any character exploration really or even any sub plots, except maybe the relationship between Miles and Nova but that wasn’t given a lot of time either. So I would say this was probably the weakest category out of the 3 for this film.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

I think this is the category where this film excelled, the cinematography and effects were great and it made the film really entertaining. The camera work was so clever, especially in the fight scenes because it seemed to flow so well. The gore was utilised well and certainly complemented the action sequences, so I think Stefan Ciupek done a brilliant job with the cinematography and the director Howden put the scenes together very well. The special effects looked realistic and I liked how it combined realism with almost a video game effect which is ironic considering Miles profession, something I’m sure was done intentionally by the director. I believe the cinematography really emphasised the chaotic nature of the film and without it I certainly wouldn’t have found the film half as entertaining as it was!

OVERALL (6.5/10)

I did enjoy the film and what stood out for me was definitely the cinematography it was consistently great throughout the whole film which made it really entertaining. Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving done brilliantly at injecting chaos and comedy into the film but unfortunately those were the only two that stood out in the whole film. The plot is very silly and I believe that was intentional because it gave way to the comedy and the action. It wasn’t meant to be writing genius and revolutionary to cinema, it was just meant to be entertaining and the film did achieve this. My main criticism is that I have seen quite a few films use the same concept of this online illegal streaming organisation and I think it’s getting a little overworked now. However it is a good watch so give it a go if you’re looking for a film where you don’t have to think to much and can just sit back and watch.

Thanks for reading! 

Callan