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Guns Akimbo (2019)

Started by Small Man Big Horse, February 29, 2020, 10:28:25 PM

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Small Man Big Horse

From the writer/director of 2015's Deathgasm comes this daft but very fun affair, where there's this sort of underground fight club thing going on called Skizm who force psychopaths to try to kill each other, and who use drones to capture all the violence while millions watch online. And because Daniel Radcliffe trolls the live chat Skizm kidnaps him, bolt guns to his hands, and set their number one killer, Samara Weaving, on to him. What follows is a ridiculous amount of OTT violence, there's very little depth here, just lots of shooting and lots of blood and gore, it's stylishly directed with some great performances (plus a fun cameo from Rhys Darby) and is a great example of a very hyper action movie done really well. 7.9/10.

Head Gardener

Saw this last night, it's good daft fun, reminded me of Crank

Famous Mortimer

Definitely reminds me of "Crank" crossed with "Ready Player One". I love that Daniel Radcliffe, having made enough money for several lifetimes, just does whatever the hell he wants these days.

Tons of fun - but I did wonder why they bothered having the English star and the Irish villain mask their accents.

phantom_power

After a shaky start to his post-Potter career Radcliffe has become the most interesting of all of them. He was great in Miracle Workers and always seems to be trying to do interesting work. Seems like a good lad as well

Mister Six

Aye, he puts Robert "Doolittle" Downey Jr to shame.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Head Gardener on March 01, 2020, 03:19:33 PM
Saw this last night, it's good daft fun, reminded me of Crank

I thought that too, mostly the high energy levels but also the ridiculous amount of damage his body took, normally that annoys me in action films but this is so over the top it's not an issue.

Quote from: phantom_power on March 02, 2020, 03:51:39 PM
After a shaky start to his post-Potter career Radcliffe has become the most interesting of all of them. He was great in Miracle Workers and always seems to be trying to do interesting work. Seems like a good lad as well

I'm a big old fan of his now, Swiss Army Man is a beautifully insane film, Miracle Workers has been enjoyable and is improving with the second season, and this is just plain daft fun. Like you say he seems to be just picking projects that interest him, and he's definitely improving as an actor over time as well.

phantom_power

Saw this last night and it is indeed big, dumb fun. Too much CGI blood but apart from that it was great. Radcliffe and Weaving hamming it up a treat, and then being completely overacted by the baldy bad fella. A good turn by Rhys Darby as well

C_Larence

Surprised at all the praise here considering the mauling it's getting pretty much everywhere else. A lot of bad reviews mentioning the director doxxing black women but I haven't looked into it. Or seen this movie. AND YET I POST

Head Gardener

Radcliffe was good in Horns too

phantom_power

Quote from: C_Larence on March 03, 2020, 08:34:51 AM
Surprised at all the praise here considering the mauling it's getting pretty much everywhere else. A lot of bad reviews mentioning the director doxxing black women but I haven't looked into it. Or seen this movie. AND YET I POST

I don't know about the doxxing stuff but critics are notoriously shit at reviewing these sorts of film. It's like a restaurant critic reviewing junk food

C_Larence

Quote from: phantom_power on March 03, 2020, 10:43:35 AM
I don't know about the doxxing stuff but critics are notoriously shit at reviewing these sorts of film. It's like a restaurant critic reviewing junk food

I should have made it clear that I was mainly talking about Letterboxd, so not just critics. It has an average rating of 2.8/5 stars and the top 10 reviews are:

2.5
1
1.5
2
1.5
4
0.5
1
4
2

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Head Gardener on March 03, 2020, 09:41:02 AM
Radcliffe was good in Horns too

I really like  A Young Doctor's Notebook (not a film) but I think CaB largely didn't like it.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: C_Larence on March 03, 2020, 08:34:51 AM
Surprised at all the praise here considering the mauling it's getting pretty much everywhere else. A lot of bad reviews mentioning the director doxxing black women but I haven't looked into it. Or seen this movie. AND YET I POST

It's a little more complicated than that - https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/guns-akimbo-director-jason-lei-howden-twitter-controversy.html - and though I wouldn't defend his actions, he has at least attempted to apologise for them.

Quote from: phantom_power on March 03, 2020, 10:43:35 AM
It's like a restaurant critic reviewing junk food

That's a great comparison, and something that I think is absolutely the case.

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 03, 2020, 12:22:33 PM
I really like  A Young Doctor's Notebook (not a film) but I think CaB largely didn't like it.

That somehow passed me by completely but I'm obtaining the first episode now and will watch it soon as it certainly looks intriguing.

phantom_power

"Director Jason Lei Howden incensed a social-media controversy over the weekend". Huh?

Mister Six

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on March 03, 2020, 09:31:49 PM
It's a little more complicated than that - https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/guns-akimbo-director-jason-lei-howden-twitter-controversy.html - and though I wouldn't defend his actions, he has at least attempted to apologise for them.

Fucking hell, I'm glad I'm not on Twitter. It's just exhausting.

DukeDeMondo

My wife and I watched this last night and Jesus oh, it is a fucking blast of a thing altogether. As others have said, there's nothing especially original about it. At any one time it's pulling from everything from Scott Pilgrim to The Running Man to Fight Club to Gamer to Crash to Shoot Em Up to Van Damme's films with Tsui Hark to The Night Comes For Us to... Aw for fuck sake, any God's amount of things it riffs on and rips off throughout, not to mention all of the many thousands of Social Media Horrors banjaxing the bandwidth these past few years. But it is about as ludicrously enjoyable a throwing together of all of those things as anyone could reasonably ask for.

Multiple shots and takes and sequences delighted me beyond all sense, but the sight of a willy trying and failing to pee in a straight line as two hands with guns bolted on attempt to hold it in place perhaps delighted most of all. I think that was the point when I properly climbed onboard, and also the point when I felt like anything at all could happen here. Absolutely anything. Bit like when we saw Kilroy's willy pissing up a window in Jam. There are no rules, you could be confronted with almost anything. That's what shots of pissing willies tend to say.

These sorts of ultraviolent OTT ADD Holyfucksploitation pictures directed to within an inch of their guts can sometimes become very wearying over the course of 90 minutes or however long, but I was captivated for the duration with Guns Akimbo. I really haven't enjoyed anything quite this much in a fair old while. Probably not since Ready Or Not, the other recent Don't Fuck With Samara Weaving picture that properly stomped me to water. 

Mango Chimes

Quote from: Mister Six on March 03, 2020, 11:57:37 PM
Fucking hell, I'm glad I'm not on Twitter. It's just exhausting.

No shit. I feel stressed out just reading that article. THIS WOMAN IS BAD, KILL HER. THESE PEOPLE ARE BAD FOR ATTACKING THAT WOMAN, KILL THEM. LOOK AT THIS GUY HAVING A GO AT THOSE PEOPLE, KILL HIM. Switch it off.

Rabba

Fun leave your brain at the door film, enjoyed the soundtrack !

C_Larence

#18
Absolutely hated this. Samara Weaving's dialogue may be the worst I've heard for quite some time, not a single line in the movie landed for me, but I actively hated most of hers. Her fight with the hammer guy was especially awful*

The camera spinning was used too much and made me dizzy. The stuff about "maybe being a troll is bad but maybe not who knows" felt tacked on, as Daniel Radcliffe was a non character whose only bit of character development was that he started killing people eventually. The middle finger thing at the end didn't make sense and was underdeveloped/unnecessary.

Every movie it apes is superior in every conceivable way.


*Reading IMDB trivia, as is part of my post movie ritual even for stuff I hate, they describe the scene like this:
Quote from: IMDB triviaDane uses the phrase "Stop. Hammer Time" before attacking Nix with a hammer. This is a line from M.C. Hammer's rap song "U Can't Touch This". After taking a bit of meth, Nix holds the hammer in the air and yells "I have the power!", the key line from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) when Prince Adam uses the power of his sword to transform into He-Man. Subsequently, Nix kills Dane while Rick James' song "Super Freak" is playing on the soundtrack. "U Can't Touch This" heavily samples "Super Freak", especially the opening bassline, which is heard in the film

Lazy hack shite. I imagine the writer's lizard brain lighting up as he connected the dots between a hammer (object) and MC Hammer (MC). Dopamine overloading through his system as he throws in a He-Man reference for no reason. Reference humour can be good, but this is just playing word association with someone who knows one word and the word is hammer.

beanheadmcginty

He-Man's power comes from Castle Grayskull, not his sword. The sword is merely a conduit. They're thinking of the Sword of Omens from Thundercats. Bloody idiots.

C_Larence

Too late to edit my last post, but I remembered the line that irked me more than any other:

"Never bring a spork to a gun fight"

A spork joke in 2019...