In a plethora of action films, the standard characteristics of the protagonist should include virtuosity, charisma, and courage. But times and movie moves along. "Guns Akimbo", the new movie directed by Jason Lei Howden, is indeed an "action" film but its also an ostensible example of how cinema today preferred to have flawed protagonists rather than almost perfect heroes. Other times the film glorifies these heroes but oftentimes it ridiculed them to a fault.
In a frivolously violent society where uproarious men and women lurk and support an underground and ruthless live-streaming forum named Skizm, that pits criminals to kill each other for entertainment; the simple world of the average programmer Miles Lee Harris (Daniel Radcliffe) turns upside down when he inadvertently pissed off of its administrator, the criminal kingpin Riktor (Ned Dennehy). What follows is a home invasion, an abduction and a surgery that leads to the gruesome bolted guns on Miles' arms, a deathmatch with a notorious criminal, Nix (Samara Weaving) and the kidnapping of his ex-girlfriend, Nova (Natasha Liu Bordizzo). What will Miles do now?
"Guns Akimbo" is a confusing explosion of creativity with its sharp cuts, skewed camera, slow motion, and arcade-like effects all coming together discordantly. This film doesn't seem to settle into one convention on how to tell its narrative but would rather try an assortment of style to locate the "fun" at the center of it. This relentless pursuit to highly energized this film with style created a lot of plot holes in the narrative and because of its obliviousness, it failed to rationalize its messy narrative and its gratuitous creative choices.
At the heart of this film, though, there is an apparent message about responsible web usage. By portraying the internet-people as mindless, barbaric and sadistic lurkers, which is a little crazy,
it paints an ugly picture of the danger of the world wide web. Implying that beyond our computer screens, people can be monsters and we are never safe.
So was it an effective film? It's a soft no, as it makes violence too amusing to be convinced that we should not tolerate it but it remains admirable as the game-like aesthetic imply that this fiction film is for pure entertainment only and was not meant to be taken seriously.
In a nutshell, Howden's inventiveness doesn't make us feel that this film stood differently than other contemporary action films that we've seen before. It also has not much to say despite its strong message. It feels like it's just here now because someone thinks "this is fun!'.
2/5
