I was sold on seeing the film GUNS AKIMBO as soon as I heard it was going to be an "adrenaline-fuelled, balls-to-the-wall original action comedy" from Jason Lei Howden, the director of DEATHGASM. Now that it has screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, the things I'm hearing about it have me even more excited to see this movie as soon as possible.
We had known that GUNS AKIMBO stars Daniel Radcliffe as
Miles, who spends his days in a dead-end job, pining for his beautiful ex-girlfriend Nova. His mundane existence is turned upside-down when he finds himself enrolled on a dark net website that forces complete strangers to fight in a city-wide game of death so that their gladiatorial battles can be live-streamed worldwide to a fanatical audience.
Contestants are chosen by a clandestine gang known as Skizm, who handicap the weaker contestant to further stack the odds against them. Initially, Miles’ lifetime of running from his problems pays off as he manages to elude his first opponent but when Nova is kidnapped, he must finally stop running and overcome his fears to fight for the girl he loves.
Radcliffe is joined in the cast by Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Miles' ex Nova, Ned Dennehy as Skizm leader Riktor, and Samara Weaving of THE BABYSITTER, MAYHEM, and READY OR NOT as Skizm assassin Nix.
Apparently a lot of the film's running time centers on action sequences in which Weaving's Nix relentlessly pursues Radcliffe's Miles… and there's something awesome in the movie that wasn't mentioned in that plot description. When Skizm forces Miles into this death game, they surgically attach guns to both of his hands, bolting the guns to his palms and fingers.
Speaking with The Wrap, Radcliffe said that the idea of playing a character with guns stuck to his hands is what first drew him to GUNS AKIMBO when he read the script.
I was immediately intrigued by that. When I got to about page 10 of the script and there was this scene where my character Miles with his new gun attachment hands has to work out and try to go to the bathroom. That was the moment that I was like ‘You’re fully exploring the premise, I’m in!' … It was both insane and crazy and violent but also incredibly funny and just exciting and really fun to read."
Radcliffe, Weaving, and Howden discuss working on GUNS AKIMBO in the video from The Wrap that can be seen below.
GUNS AKIMBO is described as a "hilariously dark, viciously violent, and chillingly prescient sci-fi thriller", and I can't wait to see it. Hopefully we'll be hearing some distribution information very soon.