Guns Akimbo - Blu-Ray

Film: In real life, video game developer Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) is unassuming and shy. But in the anonymity of the Internet, he's quite willing to risk a fat lip. Too bad he does it on the site of "Skizm", an action game broadcast live on the Darknet, where participants compete in deadly deathmatches. Suddenly, the brutal Riktor (Ned Dennehy) and his gang of thugs are at his doorstep and make Miles an unwilling participant in "Skizm" in a particularly painful way: he has an automatic weapon screwed to each of his hands. Now Miles has 24 hours to kill Nix (Samara Weaving), a seemingly invincible fighter. Miles will do anything to avoid the deadly duel. But when his ex Nova (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) is kidnapped, he realizes he has no choice but to play along with the perverse game.

There's one thing you really can't blame Daniel Radcliffe for: He didn't settle for this very particular role after the end of the "Harry Potter" series, but has tried to show as wide a range of his acting skills as possible - and often in very unusual, rather smaller films: sometimes he was the hero of an original (anti-)romance in "The F-Word", then a farting corpse in "Swiss Army Man", or even an angel trying to prevent the end of the world in the series "Miracle Workers". Now here he's running around New York in a bathrobe as a nerd with his guns bolted on, not necessarily showing his most attractive side, especially at the beginning.

"Guns Akimbo" could be described as "Running Man" meets "Crank": The race against time that Miles must win at all costs if he is to survive is watched, as in "Running Man", by millions of viewers (just on the net and not on TV) who take an almost perverse pleasure in the bloodshed that "Skizm" offers. At the same time, Jason Lei Howden's production, like Jason Statham's wild fight for survival in "Crank", is full of exaggerated violence, wild camera movements, fast cuts and wonderfully absurd humor. The flick was filmed on locations in Munich (including the English Garden) as well as in Auckland, New Zealand, which can only be seen as a positive for the look of the film.

Daniel Radcliffe is convincing here in many ways. While he almost mutates into an action hero towards the end, he gets to try his hand at physical comedy, especially at the beginning, which can almost be described as slapstick here and there. Radcliffe delivers all of this with good-humoured abandon. No less convincing is Samara Weaving, who already made genre fans happy in "Ready or not". As a completely bonkers killer, she's just so delightfully bonkers here that it's just a complete joy to watch.

Surely, "Guns Akimbo" isn't going to win any major awards and really isn't for the feint-hearted. Everything here is really served up with a sledgehammer, which can be a bit too much of a good thing in places. But all in all, the film makes one thing above all: fun! If you don't mind the weird staging and the not exactly squeamish brutality, you'll be really entertained here. And for this there is then also more than deserved a solid: worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The very special look of the film comes thanks to bright colors and a high overall sharpness very well. Detail sharpness is also at a very high level in many moments. Moments where it drops off are mostly deliberately done so, which is why this is then a stylistic device rather than a technical flaw. The DTS-HD Master 5.1 mix ignites some decent sound fireworks in the home theater, especially during the action sequences and gun battles. In addition to the sound effects and music, however, the dialogue also sounds very powerful from the speakers, although they sound a bit more centrally mixed in the German language version than in the original English version.

Extras: As a bonus, there is a short featurette (approx. 11 minutes) consisting of an interview with Daniel Radcliffe and footage from the filming, as well as the trailer.

Conclusion: "Guns Akimbo" is wild, brutal, absurd, weird and very funny. If you like action flicks like "Crank", you'll be fine here too. Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving alone make this film absolutely worth watching. The Blu-ray pleases with very good picture and sound quality. The bonus material is short and sweet, but well worth watching. All in all, there is clearly a here: Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp