Main cast: Daniel Radcliffe (Miles Lee Harris), Samara Weaving (Nix), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Nova), Ned Dennehy (Riktor), Milo Cawthorne (Hadley), Grant Bowler (Detective Degraves), Edwin Wright (Detective Stanton), Mark Rowley (Dane), Set Sjöstrand (Fuckface), Racheal Ofori (Effie), and Rhys Darby (Glenjamin)
Director: Jason Lei Howden

Dear people, try your best to suspend your disbelief as I tell you the plot of Guns Akimbo. There is this underground – yet popular enough to be viewed by millions of people – tournament where two people duke it out to death, with everything live streamed to bloodthirsty fans who would leave their comments at the sidebar like they are on Twitch or something. The fight club behind this thing is called Skizm, and the top contestant is Nix, an emotionless, very efficient killer.

Miles Lee Harris, a computer programmer who is both an online troll and a self-righteous vegan – he’d fit in very well in Twitter, in other words – makes the mistake one day of leaving mocking insults on the Skizm forum and oops, they have traced him to his home. This won’t be so bad, if the boss Riktor’s henchmen Dane, Effie, and Fuckface didn’t track him down, knock him out, and bolt a gun into each palm of his hand. He is then given the instruction to face and kill Nix within twenty hours, and if he refuses, then she’d track him down and he’s dead. Oh, and the whole thing is being live-streamed, of course, and before long, this bumbling, terrified loser stuck in his boxer shorts, dressing gown, and big fluffy bunny slippers end up becoming the biggest entertainment the audience ever had. Their nickname for him gives this movie its title. Only, will Miles survive to enjoy his newfound fame?

This show is designed to be a brainless yet frantically-paced madcap movie with gun-fu, chases, and comedy in between. Daniel Radcliffe is certainly making the most of his looks as an earnest but bumbling goofball, as he sportingly puts himself through physically as well as mentally embarrassing scenes for the sake of the art. Samara Weaving is playing another bad girl role, and she of course does it well while risking being typecast in the process.

Unfortunately, while I do enjoy watching this show, it lacks that special knockout factor that will make me remember it for some time. Sure, it goes through the motions well, but it also doesn’t come together all the well. Nix is good at killing people… but surprisingly incompetent at killing Miles. Miles eventually morphs abruptly from goofball to gun nut later in the movie without giving me any good reason to believe that these two are the same people. There are also plot holes galore, although I expected this issue from the very beginning; this movie doesn’t want to be smart, it wants to just deliver the thrills.

Also, the characters here are all underdeveloped. Miles is… funny and earnest, I guess. Nix is Samara Weaving cashing in her paycheck. Everyone else is just sort of there.

So yes, this movie is worth a look for an undemanding popcorn flick. Expecting anything more, though, will only lead to disappointment.