3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.5.16
E.M. Nathanson deserves the
credit, and nobody has the faintest idea who he is.
He wrote the best-selling 1965
WWII thriller, The Dirty Dozen, which
director Robert Aldrich turned into a crackling action film two years later.
With the template firmly established — that of disgraced convict soldiers sent
on a suicide mission, with the promise of commuted sentences for any survivors
— numerous books and films have “borrowed” the premise, often to crowd-pleasing
results.
Those crowds include comic book
readers, particularly with the 2007 re-boot of this concept in DC’s Superman
universe.
And why not? Bad guys always get
the best lines, and there’s no questioning the vicarious thrill of watching
villains allowed to behave
reprehensibly.
As one of this new film’s
characters impertinently explains, following a minor transgression: “We’re bad
guys. It’s what we do.”
The audaciously irreverent
big-screen adaptation of Suicide Squad
has plenty of snarky allure, in great part thanks to Margot Robbie’s
captivating star turn as the sexy, salacious and gleefully homicidal Harley
Quinn. As any longtime comic book fan will attest, Robbie nails the character, with all of her cherubic, psychopathic
charisma. Harley revels in her over-the-top awfulness, and Robbie embraces the
role with lustful fury.
Comic book movies very rarely get
remembered by Academy voters, but this one should; Robbie’s performance here
makes the movie.
She gets a strong assist from
Will Smith, doing an equally fine job with the more difficult role of Floyd
Lawton, better known as ace assassin Deadshot. Most of the time, Lawton has no
problem with killing at the behest of the highest bidder, but he hates being
viewed in a negative light by his estranged but still devoted adolescent
daughter, Zoe (Shailyn Pierre-Dixon, touching in a brief performance).
Smith, as a result, must navigate
the more delicate waters of a conflicted soul: a bad guy who might possess a shred of nobility.
But we’re getting ahead of
things. To the plot:
As the next installment in DC
movie continuity, Suicide Squad —
directed and scripted by David Ayer — takes place in the aftermath of early
spring’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, which concluded as Big Blue was dealt a mortal blow by a Kryptonite
spear. The U.S. government, in something of a panic, worries how a world
without Superman could defeat the next hyper-powered adversary.
Intelligence office Amanda Waller
(Viola Davis) offers a solution: Build a team of criminals with enough
collective power to withstand such a threat. Although the suggestion seems preposterous
— and dangerous — it carries a certain logic. Waller therefore is granted
permission to collect the worst of the worst from Louisiana’s Belle Reve
Federal Penitentiary.
They’re introduced in lengthy
montages accompanied by merrily malevolent rock and pop anthems such as “Purple
Lamborghini,” “You Don’t Own Me,” “Slippin’ Into Darkness” and (of course) the
Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Aside from Deadshot and Harley,
the cherry-picked list includes:
• Captain Boomerang (Jai
Courtney), an Australian “bad boy” thief and member of The Flash’s Rogue’s
Gallery, who wreaks havoc with an assortment of clever boomerang weapons;
• Enchantress (Cara Delevingne),
an über-powerful ancient goddess imprisoned for eons in a magic jar, recently
released and now inhabiting the body of archaeologist Dr. June Moone;
• Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a
former gangbanger with the gift of pyrokinetics, now a guilt-ridden loner who
refuses to wield the destructive flames that become uncontrolled when he loses
his temper;
• Slipknot (Adam Beach), a
misanthropic escape artist who can climb, entrap or break into anything with
special ropes of his own unique chemical design; and
• Killer Croc (Adewale
Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a sewer-dwelling monster who grew up with a mutant condition
that covered his body with scales and, enraged over time by the cruel behavior
of taunting civilians, decided to embrace his cannibalistic crocodile-ness.
With a vengeance.
All are injected, in the neck,
with explosive pellets under the control of both Waller and her faithful
right-hand man, veteran war hero Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman, appropriately
gung-ho). One step out of line, and they’ll simply blow off the transgressor’s
head. (Shades of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plight, in 1987’s The Running Man!)
Minor misbehavior will be handled
by Katana (Karen Fukuhara), a masked samurai who wields an ancient sword that
absorbs the soul of those it kills. Not somebody to mess with.
Assembling the team, during a
lengthy first act, is the film’s highlight. From that point forward, alas, Ayer
squanders this momentum. Some sort of “bonding” sequence would seem a natural
next step, but Ayer skips that completely; he never exploits the obvious
potential of watching these misfits attempt to get along during some sort of
military-style boot camp.
And why did we get back-story
only for Deadshot and Harley? More missed opportunities.
Instead, Ayer skips directly to
the same sort of tiresome, planet-threatening mega-menace that has become
tediously de rigueur in recent
superhero movies. Whether Superman, the X-Men or the Avengers, it’s never good
enough to battle “regular” foes; they’ve always gotta be reality-shaping
neo-gods who put the entire universe at peril. (Frankly, this film’s Big Bads
are suspiciously similar to Apocalypse, who vexed the X-Men in their latest adventure.)
C’mon, folks: The “massive
threat” here is more suited to the likes of Thor, not the Suicide Squad.
As a result, Ayer’s lengthy third
act is little more than standard-issue melees and city-leveling explosions,
along with the usual hoards of zombie-fied minions, this time former civilians
whose bodies have been covered with pustules of what looks like hardened grape
jelly. Been there, endured that. Major yawns.
But I shouldn’t be surprised by
Ayer’s inability to perceive his material’s best potential; he’s the hack who
unleashed one of the most repugnant action films in recent years, 2014’s appalling
bent-cop Schwarzenegger vehicle, Sabotage.
Ayer obviously wasn’t content to roll with established comic book continuity
that could have made a perfectly acceptable adventure-with-attitude ... and
more fool he.
Because, let’s face it: He also
wasted his own best opportunity ... since Harley Quinn also happens to be the
love-struck gal pal of the Joker, here brought to chillingly vibrant life by
Jared Leto.
I’ve gotta say, Batman’s
signature nemesis has been superbly treated by a succession of movies that have
granted memorable performances to acclaimed actors: first Jack Nicholson, then
Heath Ledger — who won a posthumous Academy Award for the role — and now Leto.
He’s just as memorably terrifying, in yet another, entirely different way. And,
good as they are individually, Leto and Robbie are even better together, their
characters’ unholy chemistry the stuff of sadistic nightmares.
While it’s true that Leto’s Joker
figures in these events, Ayer could — should — have done so much more with the character.
He also should have limited the
wicked behavior to his larger-than-life villains. But no; Ayer never
understands when he crosses the line. An unexpected act by Waller, as we
approach the climactic battle, is needlessly, reprehensibly vicious: an utterly
unforgiveable move that almost ruins the film ... and is precisely the sort of
thing I’d expect from the cretin who wrote the aforementioned Sabotage.
Not even Davis, with all her
thespic skills, can save the moment.
Ayer should be grateful that his
transgressions are overshadowed by his enthusiastic, scene-stealing cast.
Hernandez delivers poignant angst as the remorseful Diablo; we genuinely feel
the guy’s pain. Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s basso profundo vocal intonations are a
hilarious counterpoint to Killer Croc’s sarcastic one-liners, and Smith deftly
adds a layer of inherent intelligence that makes Deadshot by far the most
interesting character, in terms of real-world humanity.
And Robbie, of course, is simply
a force of nature.
The overall verdict therefore is
positive: Suicide Squad is far more
entertaining — in an admittedly guilty-pleasure sense — than the relentlessly
grim and dour DC universe efforts typified by the aforementioned Batman V Superman. That’s a definite
improvement, for which Ayer certainly deserves credit.
That said, he really does need to
be rescued from his own worst instincts.
No comments:
Post a Comment