Guns Akimbo (2020)
Directed by Jason Lei Howden
An ordinary guy suddenly finds himself forced to fight a gladiator-like battle for a dark website that streams the violence for viewers. In order to survive and rescue his kidnapped ex-girlfriend, he must battle Nix, a heavily armed and much more experienced fighter.
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16 films that influenced Guns Akimbo
What critics say influenced Guns Akimbo
The World , the frenetic, punk-rock direction of Crank , and the violent social commentary of The Running Man , you’d get something like the neon-soaked, morbidly comic, cleverly violent Guns Akimbo from writer/director Jason Lei Howden.
Filled with visceral violence, copious car-nage and pitch black humour (much comedy is mined from Miles' attempts to do seemingly simple tasks with his new enhancements), Guns Akimbo feels like the mutated offspring of The Running Man , Escape From New York and Edwards Scissorhands, with a side-order sensibility borrowed from Jason Statham's Crank .
Imagine a third Crank movie combined with Grand Theft Auto (or perhaps Borderlands), a handful of edgy comic books, and a bunch of old dance music and you’re halfway to understanding how insane this movie is.
Think of Crank , the action cult classic where Jason Statham plays a guy who has to keep his heart rate at a certain level, and double its intensity.
With Guns Akimbo , director Jason Lei Howden ( Deathgasm ) has made a film that feels as though it escaped from the Crank cinematic universe.
It’s like someone put Crank and Scott Pilgrim vs.
The title Guns Akimbo alludes to both Chow Yun-Fat's favoured wielding strategy in John Woo flicks ( Hard-Boiled as well as Woo's Hard Target are referenced literally) and the bonded chaos of these two characters.
“Guns Akimbo” is the movie I think “Hardcore Henry” wanted to be a few years back, except that aggressive and hyper-caffeinated adventure didn’t have the luxury of Daniel Radcliffe having guns sewn to his hands.
It’s more Hardcore Henry than Robocop .
While its neon-lit cityscapes and constant scuffling are reminiscent of the John Wick series, Howden’s offering is more in spirit of Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore Henry (2015).
But a small cult audience (say, viewers who liked things like Crank , Crank: High Voltage , and Hardcore Henry ) may find Guns Akimbo similarly entertaining.
Still, this film is the sequel to The Truman Show that we deserve.
It attracts millions of viewers, whom Howden portrays, The Truman Show -like, watching from the comfort of various modest hovels.
Like a deranged version of “The Truman Show,” folks log on to see peasants battle to the death and watch the worst of the worst brawl it out for total supremacy via drone feeds and pirated broadcasts.
Spectators watch remotely, à la “The Truman Show.”
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Indeed, in the ways that Guns Akimbo engages violence and televisual stimulation, it could easily be a sequel to Cronenberg's Videodrome or Shin-ya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo , two films where this biomechanical fusion feature prominently.
The World , the frenetic, punk-rock direction of Crank , and the violent social commentary of The Running Man , you’d get something like the neon-soaked, morbidly comic, cleverly violent Guns Akimbo from writer/director Jason Lei Howden.
Filled with visceral violence, copious car-nage and pitch black humour (much comedy is mined from Miles' attempts to do seemingly simple tasks with his new enhancements), Guns Akimbo feels like the mutated offspring of The Running Man , Escape From New York and Edwards Scissorhands, with a side-order sensibility borrowed from Jason Statham's Crank .
Nix is the "star" of a web-series called "SKIZM" that is essentially The Running Man playing out on city streets like a bloodier "Pokémon GO".
The film’s Skizm villains feel like they’re right out of The Running Man or Avenging Force and that’s a good thing, trust me.
Filled with visceral violence, copious car-nage and pitch black humour (much comedy is mined from Miles' attempts to do seemingly simple tasks with his new enhancements), Guns Akimbo feels like the mutated offspring of The Running Man , Escape From New York and Edwards Scissorhands, with a side-order sensibility borrowed from Jason Statham's Crank .
When he says he couldn't hurt a fly, I thought about fellow lonely boy Norman Bates at the end of Psycho , which led me to Alfred Hitchcock and how Vertigo is possibly the most personal expression of self-loathing ever produced for popular consumption on a Hollywood backlot.
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The film’s Skizm villains feel like they’re right out of The Running Man or Avenging Force and that’s a good thing, trust me.
The New Zealand-born creator’s first feature, Deathgasm, premiered at SXSW in 2015 where it won several awards, and his follow-up is bound to garner similar attention.
After the fitfully hilarious metal horrors of Deathgasm, Kiwi visual-effects-specialist-turned-writer writer-director Jason Lei Howden's return to the big screen is another gleefully over-the-top take on a well-worn genre.
In the hands of many filmmakers a concept like this would quickly devolve into a tiresome series of action sequences, dreary characters, and drab volleys of wheel-spinning plot exposition — but fortunately the director on hand is Jason Lei Howden, a crazy Kiwi filmmaker who delivered the enjoyably insane Deathgasm a few years back, and seems fully intent on continuing to deliver over-the-top violence and unexpected humanity laced with generous doses of rockin’ tunes and a dark sense of humor that often cuts right through the sheer ridiculousness of what’s happening onscreen.
— online, Guns Akimbo , Jason Lei Howden’s disappointing follow-up to Deathgasm , has a couple of smart ideas baked into its premise.
One doesn't expect subtlety from a filmmaker whose first (surprisingly amusing) movie went by the title Deathgasm .
With Guns Akimbo, director Jason Lei Howden (Deathgasm) has made a film that feels as though it escaped from the Crank cinematic universe.