There Is No Objective Reason to Not Love ‘Guns Akimbo’
You may think you haven’t heard of Guns Akimbo. It’s a little New Zealand indie feature shot way back in 2018 starring Samara Weaving and Daniel Radcliffe. Premiered at Toronto Film Festival in 2019 and, unfortunately, couldn’t secure a big enough distributor to gain worldwide recognition.
But chances are you’ve seen a frame of this film. One. Single. Frame.
This frame.
Yes, the meme-movie has been out for a while now. We watched it last night for the first time. And we have some thoughts.
Looking around popular reviews and skimming through review platforms like Letterboxd and RottenTomatoes, we’ve noticed that Guns Akimbo doesn’t hold up in critics’ eyes. The feature has a 52% RottenTomatoes score, deeming it rotten indeed.
The general consensus is that this film lacks depth and is overstylized. Many claim that Guns Akimbo seems like the wet dream of a teenager who saw Deadpool and Nerve and wanted to make something similar to those projects.
That is a ridiculous claim.
Of course, that is our opinion and it’s different from their opinion. Everyone is entitled to hold their own opinions and beliefs on anything, especially art.
However —
There is a level of objectivity to any art. Yes, it’s generally subjective, but there is a level of understanding and objective criticism that can and should be applied to any piece of art, including cinema.
We believe that anyone bashing on Guns Akimbo is a film snob. Because Guns Akimbo is a thoroughly enjoyable and fun entertainment. It doesn’t try to be anything more than that. It sets a specific tone and masters its pacing to highlight that tone. It’s quality entertainment, it’s the type of film to watch on a Friday night if you want to relax and don’t feel like watching yet another garbage flick.
To say that Guns Akimbo is overstylized and lacking depth is not only snobbish, but plain wrong. Overstylization would mean that the depth of the story disappears due to the way said story is told through a.k.a. style over substance. There are numerous examples of this in the entertainment industry.
Guns Akimbo does not suffer from this. It’s an action-comedy and the style it sets works great to build that genre. It does not lack substance through style. Granted, yes, Guns Akimbo is not the most in-depth story and you won’t be left with philosophical questions pondering in the back of your head, but it doesn’t want to be that either. It gives us one or two basic layers of story and relies on action and comedy to do the rest.
It works.
It’s fun. It’s entertaining. And it’s a great experience.
The backlash this movie receives comes from the recent pretentious wave of kinò critics. We’re reaching the point where films are expected to have multiple layers of story and hold a significant amount of depth.
And we want to make ourselves absolutely clear — we agree with this! Films should indeed craft a multilayered and thoughtful story. No one loves a pretentious art flick more than OurMovieLife.
But it is not necessary.
That’s the point. Films should indeed craft a multilayered and thoughtful story, but that’s not necessary. A film can be anything. If Guns Akimbo is going for the action-comedy entertaining flick vibe, that’s fine; if it develops and enriches its genre well enough, that’s perfect. That’s all we ask for.
Cinema is beautiful because it’s diverse. There are so many stories out there, so many atmospheres, vibes, tones, styles. We should learn to appreciate all of those. If we start thinking that only one of those is the correct method of storytelling and the only one worthy of the recognition ‘great kinò’, we become film snobs. And no one likes film snobs. So chill out, get a beer, get a bucket of popcorn, and go watch Harry Potter run around with guns bolted to his hands.
______________________________________________________________________________
Enjoyed this article? Share it. We would really appreciate it. You can also tweet us, like our Facebook page, or better yet – subscribe to our email list so you never miss a thing. Or just comment below whatever thoughts you may have – we love reading them and we always respond.
— Pouty Boy
Thank you for reminding me about this movie! From what I read, the big critics hated it but the bloggers loved it. It sounds like a lot of fun!
It is a lot of fun! Check it out!