Guns Akimbo

Daniel Radcliffe gets his gun-fu on.

Guns Akimbo (2019)

3 / 5

There’s a moment about a third of the way through where Miles (Daniel Radcliffe!), who has been shanghaied into an underground internet bloodsport livestream and is on the run, meets Glenjamin (Rhys Darby) a homeless eccentric. Their exchange is easily the best of the film, and is worth the price of admission all on its own. There are levels of meaning there that go way deep, as Miles’s naively woke worldview is challenged thoroughly by Glenjamin’s cockeyed realism. Via lyrics from Cypress Hill. Seriously.

In fact, the whole film can be watched as an indictment of woke culture, internet mobbing, and general millennial ennui. In that, it also works on multiple levels. And even if you don’t want to watch for some deep message of great social and political import, it’s still a hoot of a premise. It’s also fun to watch Radcliffe, who has so much money and nerd cred now he can literally do any project he feels like without a care in the world. I plead with whatever powers drive the MCU to cast him as the next Wolverine. 

However, the movie has a glaring and fatal flaw, which sadly is the downside of the zany mayhem promised by the premise. It’s so manic right out of the gate that it can’t step it up. It goes to 11 almost immediately, and while that’s awesome for about the first half or so, it proves impossible to sustain. By the end it’s fritzing out on overload. As with many movies like this, it’s worth watching once just to see; as an evening’s popcorn entertainment, it serves well. But if you’re like me, once is enough.  

3 stars out of 5: I liked it, but don’t care to see it again.