By Brett Blake SUICIDE SQUAD is a complete mess. There’s just no getting around that. It is deeply flawed on multiple levels, both in writing and execution, and though there are some things in the movie that are undeniably good, these positives are far outweighed by elements which feel, frankly, botched. The plot of the film is kicked into gear by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a powerful mover-and-shaker in the United States government who sees the need for a covert, “off the books” task force in the wake of the death of Superman (as depicted in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE from earlier this year). As such, she assembles a team of convicted - but gifted - criminals, including Deadshot (Will Smith), an assassin who never misses, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), an insane former psychiatrist and the Joker’s (Jared Leto) main squeeze, Diablo (Jay Hernandez), an ex low level thug who can generate and control fire, Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a mutant animal man, and Boomerang (Jai Courtney), an ace thief. Led by commando Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) and his mysterious bodyguard, Katana (Karen Fukuhara), the so-called “Suicide Squad” are given a deal: defeat an ancient and sinister menace known as the Enchantress (Cara Delevigne) - who has taken over an entire city in an attempt to subjugate the planet - and receive commuted sentences. The best thing one can say about SUICIDE SQUAD is that - with one big exception - the characters work and are fun, even as the movie they’re in sort of stinks. Will Smith’s work here is nothing less than a triumphant return to form for him after a few years of low key turns; he’s funny, charismatic as hell, and when asked to shoulder a few key emotional moments, pulls them off flawlessly. Margot Robbie embodies the Harley Quinn character as though she jumped right off the comics page or the television screen (Harley had her initial origins on the BATMAN animated series in the 1990s); she’s a blast of exuberance and energy, tinged with just a hint of vulnerability. And yes, she’s also quite sexy in the role, even as the movie emphasizes this to such a degree that one starts to feel a bit icky about it. Jay Hernandez gets to play perhaps the most interesting and complex character in the story, Karen Fukuhara and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje totally sell their characters’ physicalities, and Joel Kinnaman holds everything together with a no-nonsense attitude which we gradually come to learn is shielding some vulnerability of his own. I would love to see another movie with these characters on some other adventure. It’s just that this particular adventure leaves much to be desired. Those good performances are almost (but not entirely) undone by a screenplay that is nothing short of shoddy. On a structure level, the story is bizarrely told, with a jarring and slapdash (and seemingly endless) first act introducing us to the various members of the Squad (which is entertaining enough in itself because of the strength of the performances), then brings forward second and third acts that exist as basically a singular big chunk of story (and one which rather shamelessly apes John Carpenter’s ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, right down to the explosive charges that are injected into the Squad members). There’s no major escalation heading into the final third of the film, which leaves it feeling rather limp. It’s not only structurally flawed, though. Characters repeatedly make incredibly poor (sometimes outright stupid) decisions which, when looked at once the movie is over, make no sense; Davis’ Amanda Waller is particularly ill-served in this regard. And that is to say nothing of the central villain of the piece, the Enchantress, who is decidedly not the Joker (in case you were hoping he was the primary antagonist, because he isn’t), and who is underwhelming in the extreme; there is nothing memorable about the villainous scheme at the heart of the tale, and the character makes basically no impact at all. She’s ultra-generic, to the point that it feels like the filmmakers (writer/director David Ayer chief among them) didn’t bother to even try to hide the perfunctory nature of her existence. There’s also a considerable lack of narrative momentum or drive. The titular Squad is assembled for no great discernible reason pertinent to this particular film; it’s a pre-emptive move by Waller to counter potential threats in the future, not to thwart an imminent catastrophe. Ironically, it is this pre-emptive move which, from a certain point of view, actually brings about the central villainous plot of the story, which is pretty hacky, coincidence-reliant storytelling. Also hacky? The inclusion of the Joker, who has literally no bearing on the plot; he just shows up a couple of times (in full-on gangsta/pimp-style settings), mugs, and departs. The Joker could be entirely removed from the film and little would have needed to be changed. Leto, by the way, is technically fine in the role, in the sense that he does what is asked of him, but this conception of the Joker is truly awful, a gross and sleazy version of the Clown Prince of Crime without even the hint of an ideology or world view motivating him. I understand the need for letting people have different interpretations of the character, but this is a Joker I never want to see again. Some of these issues, I’m certain, have been exacerbated by choppy and damaging editing choices, choices likely imposed on director Ayer and his collaborators by the studio. You can literally feel the moments and scenes that were clearly reshot, because they awkwardly jut out of the narrative instead of smoothly locking into place. The movie stops numerous times so characters can state - and re-state - information and plot points that the audience already knows about (complete with flashbacks to things we’ve already seen!), as if the studio expects most of the viewers do not have attention spans of even a short duration. At the end of the day, SUICIDE SQUAD is a big misfire, albeit one full of characters I enjoyed. That’s a weird position to be in as a viewer, but it’s symbolic of the movie as a whole: good elements poorly implemented.
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