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TIFF 2019 Review: Guns Akimbo

Daniel Radcliffe stars in what has to be one the most wildest rides of the festival.

Guns Akimbo might be the most fun you’ll have at TIFF. It’s crude, overly styled, insanely violent, and just about everything we shake our fingers at when it comes to misaligned morals in cinema. However it’s really hard not to find something to bite at. 

You should hate this movie, but you won’t, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Daniel Radcliffe gives a magnetic performance based off of a few witty lines of dialogue, and a half baked script. The film is largely style over substance, but it seems to be okay with it. Nothing makes sense, but it looks incredible doing so. Unfortunately, the supporting cast falls short, all except for Samara Weaving who shines in meta glory as Nix. In fact, both of the performances from Weaving and Radcliffe should be counted as something of a feat considering the source.

Guns Akimbo operates like a fine tuned visual comic book. The frames literally explode off the screen with colour and highly imaginative imagery. There’s few frames that feel boring, and even when it feels like too much it only punctures the absurdity of the situation at hand.

This is a film that is loads of fun, but unfortunately, that’s all. The writing clearly has a lot to say about voyeurism via the web, and an audience’s love for violence, but when your film relishes in it as much as the audience watching on screen, it’s a hard truth to swallow.

Still wondering why this didn’t make the cut for Midnight Madness, as that was definitely the crowd you’d want to experience this with.

3
Andrew Hamilton

Andrew Hamilton is a Toronto based filmmaker and creative mad man. Legend has it that he spent most of his childhood locked away in a cell beta testing Netflix.