2016: The Year in Film: "Suicide Squad" Review

So after the moderate to large sized disaster that was Batman V Superman (seriously, that movie was 85% hot trash and even though the film was a moderate financial success an expanded universe simply cannot be maintained on the back of poorly reviewed and generally bad films) Warner Brothers and DC were in need of a fresh start, something to propel them into the Marvel stratosphere. Hopes have been high concerning Suicide Squad, and DC clearly believes in the project, as they've been hyping it. (and especially Jared Leto's Joker for more than a year) The future of the DC film universe doesn't COMPLETELY rest in the hands of David Ayer and Suicide Squad, as Wonder Woman was the best part of BvS and the trailer released recently at Comicon looks great, but a well done and successful Suicide Squad is pretty key to DC's ambitions to match Disney and Marvel.

On paper, this seems like an intriguing and potentially great match. David Ayer, the writer of films like Training Day, the original Fast and the Furious and the writer/director of the underrated Brad Pitt WW2 tank vehicle Fury and the solid End of Watch (although it does seem suspect in retrospect that he likes the word "fury" so damn much...) has made a name for himself in making gritty, action packed, extremely masculine films with dark characters that pull very few punches. The "Suicide Squad" in DC comics and also depicted in the show Arrow on the CW is a group of villains who are enlisted by ARGUS (DC's version of SHIELD) to take on dangerous and/or deadly missions for the government under the threat of death. So the writer of Training Day writing and directing a movie about supervillains undertaking secret heroic missions starring Will Smith? This should be a home run, right?

The film features a bunch of villains we've never met considering that the DCU is 2 films old at this point, and introduces them to varying degrees of success. Deadshot (Will Smith) is a hitman who never misses. Harley Quinn (Margot Robie) is the Joker's girlfriend. Captain Boomerang is an Australian thief who has the worst name ever and throws boomerangs. Killer Croc is a giant man-reptile. Enchantress is a witch. Rick Flagg is a special forces soldier in charge of keeping them under control, etc.

The Good:  the cast is, by and large, solid. Will Smith turns in a predictably good and charismatic performance and is pretty damn convincing as the ultra competent Deadshot, who becomes a sort of co-leader of this crew. Margot Robie is pretty good as Harley Quinn, even if her accent appears to be the same one she used in Wolf of Wall Street and has me concerned that she only knows how to sound American if she adopts a ridiculous Brooklyn/Long Island accent that sounds like it's right out of Sopranos. Viola Davis is solid as Amanda Waller, the calculating and cold head of ARGUS. Joel Kinnaman is fine. Jai Courtney's Capt. Boomerang is intriguing. Additionally, there is humor to be found here, as Harley Quinn especially has some LOL-worthy lines. The first 20 or so minutes of this film is very well done and suggests that somewhere underneath everything else there might just exist a version of Suicide Squad that is a damn good movie... unfortunately that's not the one they chose to release.



The Bad: this movie is at once bloated and desperately needing more, which is also true of BvS and is, in my book, just maybe the worst sin a film can commit. Its characters are serviced and introduced at random and seemingly nonsensical intervals, with some getting extended flashbacks and backstories, others getting none, and some getting maybe one scene. The plot, insofar that a plot actually exists, is totally predictable and circular. i.e., the Suicide Squad is formed to fight threats that only emerge because the Suicide Squad is formed. The villains are pointless, lack motivation or backstory and are ill defined. Speaking of ill-defined, the film wants to be a superpowered version of Escape from NY or The Dirty Dozen, but WE DON'T EVEN GET A PLANNING SCENE WHERE THEY (and by extension "we") ARE TOLD WHAT THEIR MISSION IS. Only some characters actually know what the mission is, so it results in a bloated back half of the film that consists mainly of people wandering around with no impetus or motivation because no one is actually aware of what the threat actually is. The music. Sigh, the music in this thing is probably the worst part about it and maybe the worst use of soundtrack I've ever seen in a film. In a film that, like I said, lacks exposition, character backstories for most of its cast, and any description of the team's mission, the songs are so incredibly ham fisted and spot on that it's actively offensive to anyone who's left the house in the last decade. Extended scenes in this film feel basically like music videos, and the desperate attempt to parrot what Guardians of the Galaxy did so well is just an epic fail because of how spot-on and unsubtle the entire enterprise is. Also - I'm not sure whose decision this was - Ayer's or the studio's, but a significant amount of the film's marketing centered around Jared Leto's Joker. Watch that trailer, he's in 25% of it. He is in probably... 9 minutes of the film's 120 minutes runtime. It's basically a cameo, which is confusing considering how hyped up it was. If you're going to have hardly any Joker, why play up how much Joker you're going to have? He was fine and different - but he didn't add hardly anything at all.

All in all, the best compliment I can give to this movie is that it's at least twice as good as Batman v Superman, and that there are elements here that make me feel like this movie COULD HAVE been good. Will Smith and Margot Robie are worth watching, and the film itself is roughly 30% an 8/10 film, 20% a 5/10 film and 50% a 1/10 film. Disappointing, DC, although not irredeemably bad.

5/10

2014: The Year in Film: "Fury" Review

The Second World War is easily one of the top 2 or 3 film settings in the history of film. We've seen WW2 done in just about every conceivable way.. and it's easy to see why. The scale of the war is virtually inconceivable to a modern audience, and the clear morality of the conflict makes it easy to tell re-envisioned or adapted versions of virtually any myth or archetypical heroic story by using the war as a backdrop.

David Ayer, the writer/director of Fury, cut his teeth on gritty LA crime dramas. He wrote Training Day, wrote the first Fast and Furious film, wrote and directed the underrated Harsh Times, and wrote and directed End of Watch, here we see a departure (although he did write U-571) with a World War 2 tank film. Ayer's films are violent, often brutal, and hyper-masculine, so it's exciting to see his take on a well-worn genre. Ayer has also been tapped to write and direct WB/DC's Suicide Squad, kind of a superhero twist on The Dirty Dozen, and I think that's kind of an inspired choice.

Here, we are dropped into Germany in April, 1945. The war is nearly over (indeed, it will end on May 8, although our characters don't know that) and our war-weary characters have fought their way into Germany itself. As they face increasingly desperate German defense in hostile territory, the seasoned tank unit is forced to accept a raw recruit due to personnel shortages. This recruit, Norman, (Logan Lerman) has zero training or experience, which is a bit of an issue for the rest of the crew, who have been together for years. The crew, led by "Wardaddy" (Brad Pitt, in a bleak take on his Aldo Raine character from Inglorious Basterds) finds itself tasked with defending an important crossroads at the main column's rear, and desperately trying to survive the war.

The Good: first, I don't think I've ever quite seen WW2 depicted in this way. It's become commonplace in our culture, already inclined to think of veterans in a positive light, to treat every member of the "greatest generation" in a venerated air of hushed respect. That's simplistic, morally simplistic, and quite frankly disrespectful to the millions of unique individuals who served during this time representing all shades of the human condition. This film treats its characters as flawed, dark, cynical but most of all believable human beings. They aren't trying to be heroes. They're guys who've seen a lot of horrible shit and just want to do their job and go home. The film is gritty, dark, and dirty, with everyone constantly covered in filth, mud, grease and blood, the way I imagine a tank crew in enemy territory in 1945 would have been. The action sequences are tremendously and impressively choreographed, and the film features the single finest tank battle I've ever seen depicted on screen. The narrative is tight, despite the long runtime, and it's not overly grand in scope, choosing to focus on "man on the ground" realism rather than large displays. But most of all, the highlight of this film are the performances, and two in particular. Brad Pitt is, at this point, maybe the most quietly assured movie star on the planet. He eases into his roles with aplomb and brings a truly remarkable depth and humanity to a damaged yet charismatic man who easily could have become a caricature. It's become commonplace to rip on Shia LaBeouf, and the guy is no-doubt a weirdo, but in this film he turns in a legitimately great performance as "bible", the tank's gunner and spiritual leader. He's nearly unrecognizable, missing teeth, scarred, mustached and covered in mud while mumbling most of his lines, but his character feels so incredibly true to life and delivers some of the film's most powerful moments. See below. Jon Berenthal (Shane from the Walking Dead) and Michael Pena are strong as well and Logan Lerman grows up before our very eyes on screen. The combat depicted is brutal, and the gallows humor between the men galling, and in a lot of ways this film feels like a war horror movie - which I suppose is what a good depiction of war should be. The violence and gore is occasionally shocking, but I suppose it probably is pretty shocking to see the things one sees in war. By the time of the film's climatic battle, we have spent so much time with these men so intimately, that we are incredibly invested in every shot... and the battle is infinitely better for it.



The Bad: if anything, it may be TOO gory, which could lead to a legitimate criticism of the film taking relish in its disturbing visuals. I don't think that's what the film is trying to do, but there are some horror-gore level visuals that can be a little upsetting. Additionally, I liked what Logan Lerman was doing by and large, but I don't think his character was interesting or compelling enough to match what Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf were up to. Granted, he's an audience cipher and our window into this world, but he's just not that interesting. Additionally, I think it's worth stating that I feel the film ultimately falls a little short of its goal.... there are occasional moments of true... grace? Beauty? And profound humanity.. but at its heart it falls short of greatness, and settles for "damn fine war movie"... which isn't so bad.

Ultimately, this is a poignant, powerful, occasionally upsetting and visually thrilling film. Fans of World War 2 or war movies in any way should not miss this one, as I feel that it's a valuable addition to the war canon. Don't come to see gallant heroes vanquish evil. Come to see human beings cope with hell on earth. And for a few really great actors do some really great work.

8/10.