If you like the film Wanted, then I’ve got a movie for you, as it’s pretty much the same thing but not nearly as good or memorable.
That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this movie, I did. It just fell short of what I was expecting from it, given the crazy trailer they gave us.
And that isn’t to say there aren’t crazy moments either, as this film does a great job of delivering the gun kata we have all grown accustomedto from other action films such as John Wick, and the Deadpool movies.
I listed only those two as examples since Guns Akimbo is clearly heavily inspired by those titles. Though Deadpool maybe more so, as the humor I think more aligns with that film’s tone.
The main selling point for me with Guns Akimbo were two things…
First being Samara Weaving, who seems to be doing her best Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn impression. But oddly doing a better job at it.
The second selling point for me was the crazy outfit Daniel Radcliffe’s character is stuck wearing. Seeing as he doesn’t have the use of his hands, he is stuck wearing whatever he has on at the time. That just happens to be a robe and a pair of giant fluffy tiger feet slippers.
Unfortunately for both of those things, Samara Weaving and Radcliffe’s outfit, both are underutilized. Samara Weaving is essentially barely in this or at least not as much as she needs to be.
And about half way into the film, Radcliffe changes his outfit to something more pedestrian.
Which to me translates to boring!
Daniel Radcliffe plays Miles, a by day video game coder and by night, a shit poster that trolls people on chat rooms and comment pages.
In this world Miles lives in, a hot new illegal fight club game show has started airing called Skizm. It pits two killers against one another and no one is more efficient at it than the lovely crackhead Nix, played by Samara Weaving. Who you might remember from last year’s film Ready or Not. Now playing the complete oppositecharacter she was in that movie.
She’s rude, crude, psychotic, loves cocaine and killing people for sport.
If Miles is our James McAvoy character from Wanted, then think of Nix as our Angelina Jolie equivalent Fox.
Anyway, while up late one night, Miles decides to do some shit posting in the chatroom of Skizm. Maybe not the best idea, as the moderator threatens him, warning him to back off or there will be blood.
And like any normal person, Miles continues the shit posting, getting the wrath of Skizm, letting him know they have his IP address.
Soon Miles gets a knock at the door, instead of Uber Eats, it’s a group of maniacs who smash his door down, knocking him out.
When Miles wakes up, he finds that his hands have been bolted into a pair of guns. To make things worse, Nix has been sent to kill him.
Leading this nightmare game show that makes Japanese game shows seem quaint by comparison, is Riktor, played by Ned Dennehy who you might recognize as one of the cultist in Mandy.
That’s right, folks, yet another Mandy reference!
Believe it or not, I did want to go at least one review without bringing up Mandy. But here we are, this is our world now. Like the Jelly of the month club, it’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.
Anyway, that aside, Miles tries talking some sense into Nix but she has a job to do and damn it, like the Terminator, she’s going to get it done.
But Miles proves to be a slippery little bugger, escaping death several times by fumbling and stumbling about.
Another cool feature is we get to see Miles’ bullet count for each gun. It also seems like firing a round from the guns are extremely painful, as they are bolted through his skin and hand.
Before all of this happened, Miles made plans to meet up with his ex-girlfriend Nova. I don’t believe they ever shared the reason why they broke up, just that it didn’t work out.
The problem with meeting up is, one he has guns bolted to his hands, two is stuck wearing a robe and not much else, but the real problem, Nix is dogging him everywhere he goes, tracking him through his cellphone.
Not to mention Nix now has a rocket launcher, so…
Miles tries to explain things to Nova but freaks out when she sees his gun hands, abandoning him alongside the road.
Miles goes to his job and asks a friend to turn off the tracking on his phone, but leaves the option to turn it back on in place, just in case he needs to use it somehow.
But Nix shows up once again, shoots up the place, and explodes Miles’ shithead boss’s head.
To get Miles to start fighting back, Riktor kidnaps Nova and tells Miles that if he doesn’t kill Nix, he will murder Nova instead.
Now fully motivated, Miles sets a trap for Nix at a junkyard by using the tracker on his phone, then calling the police to intercept her. Unfortunately, Miles runs into a drug deal going on at the exact same time and all hell breaks loose once Nix shows up with a minigun.
Nix gets away, but Miles gets arrested by the police. Two detectives hot on the case and set on arresting Nix are Degraves and Stanton.
Nix is actually Degraves’ daughter. When she was young, Riktor set a trap for Degraves and his family, burning them alive in a car. Nix and Degraves managed to get out alive but the rest of the family weren’t so lucky.
Now, suffering from a ton of mental issues, Riktor has roped Nix into his evil game show, forcing her to murder people.
The two detectives plan to lure Nix out by using Miles as bait. Well that was the plan until Stanton turns on his partner and shoots him in the face.
Turns out Stanton was a dirty cop on Riktor’s payroll.
He sets Miles free so he can continue the showdown with Nix.
But Miles has other ideas, like trying to talk some sense into Nix, showing her her dead father. Now that she is listening first and shooting second, Miles tells her his plan.
Ironically though the plan does actually involve her shooting him.
Once it looks like Nix is the winner of the match, Riktor sends a cleanup crew to come clean up any evidence. But Miles was only playing possum, killing his way into Skizm’s facility along with a kill happy Nix.
Riktor takes Nova hostage, using her as a shield as Miles faces off with him once again. But this time it’s different since Miles now has gun hands!
Unfortunately, Miles only has one bullet left and he’s still a terrible shot. So he resorts to just bludgeoning him to death with them instead. But not before taking a few bullet holes in the process.
Speaking of bullet holes, Nix gets filled with them as she makes a suicide run with a bomb strapped to her chest.
I kind of didn’t see why this was necessary, killing Nix, I mean. The two get pinned down, surrounded by bad guys shooting at them. But we’ve seen Nix get out of trickier situations than this before.
What should have happened, she plans on doing her suicide run, but just ends up killing everyone with ease. That would have been a bit funnier, plus she has more of a reason to want to get revenge on Riktor anyway. He did killer her whole family after all.
It felt like another missed opportunity.
Maybe because the trailer for Guns Akimbo came out about the same time as the new Ryan Reynolds film Free Guy, I figured this was getting a theater release. So I was pretty shocked to see it on demand. But after watching it, I can see why it went straight to streaming.
Guns Akimbo was directed by the same bloke that did Deathgasm and you might remember me mentioning that film before in my last review for Come to Daddy, because the director of that film was a producer on it.
As for Guns Akimbo, is it went the watch? Sure, it’s a fun, violent thrill ride with some issues. Some you can easily overlook and others it’s hard to ignore.
So, I give this film a RENT IT rating.
Check it out if you find yourself craving an over the top action film.
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