Jason Lei\u00a0Howden\u2019s\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0is like a\u00a0pre-teen railed a bunch of cocaine, watched\u00a0Gamer<\/i>, and went, \u201cYeah! I could make this.\u201d This is not stated with malice or regret, mind you. You\u2019re tuning in for \u201cDaniel Radcliffe with guns for hands,\u201d and that\u2019s precisely the\u00a0Nerve<\/i>\u00a0meets\u00a0Shoot \u2018Em\u00a0Up<\/i>\u00a0scenario injected into your eyeballs. For better and worse,\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0meets all expectations but sometimes struggles to make the leap into God-tier infamy like\u00a0Howden\u2019s\u00a0headbanger debut\u00a0Deathgasm<\/i>.\u00a0Howden\u00a0riffs off\u00a0midnighter\u00a0adrenaline gauntlets of action calamity past, commenting on our consumption of media negativity and toxic online obsessions, but in doing so, slavishly indulges in the very themes\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0attempts to redefine.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like a Saturday morning cartoon for the criminally insane, and I mean that with love.<\/p>\n
Internet troll Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) spends his days coding mobile gaming apps and nights tearing into\u00a0Skizm\u00a0commenters. What\u2019s\u00a0Skizm, you ask? Just the latest live-streamed deathmatch that pits competitors against one another for views. One night, during an alcohol-fueled rage against\u00a0Skizm\u2019s\u00a0worst users, Miles finds himself under fire from the creators. Cut to\u00a0Skizm\u2019s\u00a0brass breaking his door in, \u201csurgically\u201d attaching pistols to his hands, and forcing him to battle fan-favorite Nix (Samara Weaving) for his freedom.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s currently no release plan for\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0as it\u2019s only played Toronto International Film Festival and Fantastic Fest, so keep your eye out for future distribution plans. In the meantime, I\u2019ve got three reasons cocked, locked and ready to catch this kinetic action romp.<\/p>\n1. Daniel Radcliffe With Guns For Hands\u00a0Is Everything You Wanted<\/h2>\n
We\u2019re long past baby-faced Harry Potter D-Rad, and\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0notches yet another experimental genre role he owns extremely hard. Screws are shot through his fingers and palms, keeping \u201cakimbo\u201d hand cannons fastened throughout the film\u2019s entirety. Cue Miles fumbling with doorknobs, pants, and other objects that are much harder to use when your hands are now pointed gun barrels. Bathroom urination becomes fodder for physical comedy, as Radcliffe blends Miles\u2019 frantic paranoia with laughable frustration at the fact that his hands can now blow his face (or other appendages) to smithereens.<\/p>\n
Radcliffe\u2019s energy is desperate, playful, and leaning into the Looney Tunes calamity of\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>. Miles refuses to accept his iron-sighted circumstance but runs with\u00a0Skizm\u2019s\u00a0rules without hesitation. It\u2019s Radcliffe exuding charisma under fire as if he\u2019s buzzed off Monster energy drinks and the constant paranoia of a target on his head. He’s like the main character of a video game fighting against \u201cStreets Of Rage-<\/i>looking villains\u201d who doesn\u2019t require much definition – but Radcliffe goes all-in anyway. Please, Daniel, keep playing in these unique cinematic capacities.<\/p>\n2. Samara Weaving For President\u00a0Of Everything, Please<\/h2>\n
\u201cPUT SAMARA WEAVING IN EVERYTHING,\u201d he screams yet again from the nearest mountaintop. What a gift to Hollywood and humanity. I won\u2019t lie – Nix is an underwritten rival to Miles\u2019 poor shot despite being given a richer backstory. Even so, Weaving\u2019s female Terminator inspiration is number one with a bullet when it comes to rancid, drug-fueled cyber assassins. Her macabre sense of humor is accented by weapons painted with words like \u201cKindness\u201d and zipping bullets through gangbanger skulls. Weaving understands how to be the hardest warrior in the room, what it takes to monopolize jailhouse charm, and does her best Harley Quinn impression when giddily mowing down drug dealers with an oversized heavy machine blaster (smile included).<\/p>\n
Weaving is the anarchistic soldier yin to Radcliffe\u2019s inept shooter yang, metal in her mouth and vengeance in her soul. You\u2019ll get the\u00a0underbaked\u00a0connection between Nix, lead\u00a0Skizm\u00a0psychopath\u00a0Riktor\u00a0(Ned Dennehy), and Miles\u2019 plot to tear down the infection from within – which, admittedly, leaves Nix with nothing but sidekick duty. It’s normal plot advancement material that Weaving still upgrades with her presence alone, be it ignoring Miles\u2019 simplest instructions or bashing mohawked attackers with a hammer after railing a line of \u201cpower-up\u201d cocaine like Popeye would spinach. There\u2019s no one I\u2019d rather see look bored while riddling Miles\u2019 \u201cnerd cave\u201d with live rounds, always the greater character during every violent interaction.<\/p>\n
Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0never levels up to the heights expected, but that\u2019s the difference between an \u201cA\u201d and a \u201cB\u201d if I were a grade school teacher. Jason Lei\u00a0Howden\u00a0knows how to party with\u00a0gunsmoke\u00a0and electro-rock trance soundtracks. As Miles interacts with police officers, pursues his crush Nova (Natasha Liu\u00a0Bordizzo), or eats street urchin leftovers (from\u00a0Rhys Darby), it\u2019s all juvenile gags and laughs. Frenzied\u00a0Skizm\u00a0fans scream cheers of bloodlust as a means of exposing the vitriolic hatred that exists online. You\u2019ve seen these beats before, and you\u2019ll see \u2018em\u00a0again – but you\u2019re here for the shootouts and\u00a0Howden\u00a0executes there without restraint.<\/p>\n
Even if\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>\u00a0might not ascend beyond splashy combat sequences complete with modernized rock anthem needle drops, it\u2019s still a double-barreled action explosion primed to please the teenager in us all. Vigilante troll justice with a side of improbable gang warfare. Greed corrupts all, humanity encourages suffering, and Danielle Radcliffe has fifty bullets in each hand that might just buy him an extra life. You better believe that\u00a0Howden\u00a0shoots every last shot, ensuring a wild, lawless ride with madcap excitement in its crosshairs. Imagine if Scott Pilgrim was forced to compete in\u00a0The Running Man<\/i>\u00a0games, then add an overstocked armory. That\u2019s\u00a0Guns Akimbo<\/i>. Never pretentious, always tossing lighter fluid into an already-raging fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jason Lei\u00a0Howden\u2019s\u00a0Guns Akimbo\u00a0is like a\u00a0pre-teen railed a bunch of cocaine, watched\u00a0Gamer, and went, \u201cYeah! I could make this.\u201d This is not stated with malice or regret, mind you. You\u2019re tuning in for \u201cDaniel Radcliffe with guns for hands,\u201d and that\u2019s precisely the\u00a0Nerve\u00a0meets\u00a0Shoot \u2018Em\u00a0Up\u00a0scenario injected into your eyeballs. For better and worse,\u00a0Guns Akimbo\u00a0meets all expectations but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":10341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[40,37],"class_list":["post-10340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-featuredpage","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10342,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions\/10342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}