Guns Akimbo (2020)

Akimbo means to have your hands flung out widely or haphazardly, usually with the arms attached to the hips with elbows turned outward. And that’s how Miles finds himself in this action-comedy film.

Miles is a nobody who codes for a crappy app game. His boss sucks, and his main friend is that kinda annoying guy from work. His life is generally awful, but he gets his kicks by being an online troll. (In fairness, Miles believes himself to be trolling the trolls.)

One night, he decides to heckle viewers of Skizm, an organized crime group that live-streams death matches between criminals. This coder forgot to use a VPN or some other way to mask his IP address. Oops. Yep, Miles’ crappy life is going to quickly get worse.

Skizm’s leader Riktor quickly tracks Miles down. Leader of a cybermurder squad, he looks like Voldermort with really bad face tattoos. He barges into Miles’ apartment with his thugs, and they bolt a gun to each of his hand. It’s like Edward Scissorhands, but with bullets. “Edward Gunhands” as one a-hole businessman on the street later calls Miles.

For this death match, Riktor pits Miles against Nix, the deadliest killer in the game. Miles has 24 hours to kill her. There are other rules, but that one is most important.

It’s a good thing that Miles sets up a date with his ex, Nola, the night before it all goes down. He now has at least someone to call for help.

Nix is introduced in a drug-rage induced montage, where she shoots up a roomful of bad boys in order to get her hands on some new toys that go bang-bang. The police are on to her, and they’re just seconds too late to catch her in this scene. Their manhunt continues.

Really, though, Nix wants outs. Skizm HQ texts her to this battle with Miles is her last. She moves around the police station in a fake mustache and pilfered uniform to get in a computer and search for Miles’ deets. When she arrives at his apartment, she still has a rolled-up dollar bill hanging from her nose. Child’s play, really.  

After Miles escapes Nix, he’s left to roam the city in his bathrobe and oversized tiger flippers. The alternate near future city is full of fresh and bright graffiti, and there are surveillance cameras everywhere that Skizm has full access to. And he has lots of drones. Viewers catch all the action from a livestream, produced from Skizm’s lair in a dark, sketchy warehouse.

Once Riktor realizes that Nix isn’t doing her job, he sends other baddies from his crew to kill whoever necessary. In one scene, badass Effie faces off with Nix and Miles. Nix instantly recognizes Effie’s automatic weapon of choice and in true lady fashion, compliments it like it’s a pair of shoes or a haircut. One the niceties are over, pew, pew, pew. Nix gets some shots in, but she and Miles are mostly dodging the ones from Effie’s AR. Most bullets miss their targets, and our main characters are able to flee the scene. The ladies in this movie bring a new meaning to “point and shoot.”

‘m running short on time here, so…well…Nix and Miles team up, Nix dies, Miles kills Riktor just before he lets the cat out of the bag. Skizm’s gone global, and there’s no stopping it. And now Miles has the new life mission of hunting down all the other online criminals, and he’s going to look sexy doing it in his suit and no guns akimbo.

It’s unlikely there will be a sequel, seeing as this movie didn’t earn and Daniel Radcliff isn’t into never-ending sequals after giving his childhood to Harry Potter and all. Let’s hope the fan fiction fills that void.