Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad, dir. David Ayer – 2016

Massive spoilers throughout; also TRIGGER WARNING for discussion of abusive relationships/domestic violence.

For the purposes of this review, I am going to be talking almost entirely about narrative, characterisation and acting because, hey, that's what I know! For a better take down than I could write of the blatant misogyny at work through much of the film try Alison Willmore's post on Buzzfeed or the always stellar Emily Asher-Perrin's over at Tor.com . Also, yes, Katana is reduced to 'strange Asian lady who talks to her magic sword' and the first Native American to portray a named meta-human in a mainstream, live action Marvel or DC movie does not speak, punches a female soldier in the face in his first moment on screen, and is killed 5 minutes later to make a point………………...........................................
……………………..............................................................
…….............this is gonna be a long one, isn't it?

The Suicide Squad are a team of currently incarcerated super-criminals, assembled, coerced and intimidated by Amanda Waller (Viola Davies) to become a task-force, capable of dealing with meta-human threats. Among their number are master assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), fire-controlling El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), loutish Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and the insane Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), while leading this team of misfits is the tough-as-nails Special Forces officer Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). However, unbeknownst to them, Waller's first attempt at controlling meta-humans was the Enchantress (Cara Delevinge), an amazingly powerful magic wielder who shares a body with archaeologist June Moore, Flag's girlfriend. Unfortunately, the Enchantress seizes an opportunity to escape, and begins to assemble a weapon in the city centre that is capable of destroying the world. The Squad are sent in, but all the while Harley's grinning, green-haired boyfriend is closing in on them.

The elements of Suicide Squad can be divided neatly into four categories: the excellent, the lazy, the problematic and the deeply uncomfortable.

To start with the excellent areas, and there are some, despite everything else that needs saying about the film: the style of the film is pretty damn nice, with some great cinematography and wonderful uses of colour and lighting. The set designs are also beautiful; Arkham looks as close to a Hammer Gothic mansion as it should, and what we see of Gotham has a nicely gritty, dirty feel to it. Praise also has to go to most of the cast. With steely eyes, face of stone and voice of iron, Viola Davies embodies every inch of the badass-as-all-hell Amanda Waller, even though the plot itself dramatically undermines her competency. Will Smith manages to tone down the normal Will Smith charm, and though it's debatable whether a character other than Will Smith emerges, it's also debatable whether one needs to. Joel Kinnaman plays the tough-guy soldier, secretly concerned for his girlfriend, with all the hard-edged stoicism it requires, while Jai Courtney is entertaining as the boorish Boomerang. Jay Hernandez, playing a pyrotechnic crime lord who killed his own family in a fit of temper, focuses on El Diablo's total regression into guilt and manages a very quiet, touching performance, despite the lazy racial stereotyping. And Margot Robbie, bless her, is trying SO hard against a script I will discuss later, to nail Harley, and in everything that an actor can contribute, pretty much does: she steers a perfect course between childlike and cynical, while keeping Harley's chirpy demeanour intact, and her delighted squeal of 'Puddin'!' is indistinguishable from the original Animated series. Meanwhile, Cara Delevingne once again proves she can hold her own as an actress, however...

Moving on to the lazy aspects, and having mentioning Delevingne, leads us straight into the unavoidable fact that our antagonist is beyond one-dimensional. Though initially the Enchantress is at least vaguely threatening, shadowy and savage, when she receives a power-up, she transforms into the utterly generic Enchantress who then reawakens her brother as her utterly generic CGI muscle. Does the film explore her trauma at having been once worshipped as a god and then reduced to being controlled by Waller, her humiliation at her enslavement and her feelings of violation at being turned into someone else's weapon? Do they, with this depth of character, create a sympathetic, complex antagonist, who we can empathise with, who has come from a similar place as our protagonists and whom they can relate to even while still needing to stop? Nope. Oh no, there's too much wearing a black bikini and headdress and 'building a weapon to destroy the world with' which is done by crotch-thrusting at a massive column of magic blue light (let's not go there on that one!) to be done for any of that. We are given zero information about the weapon (which of course would have been ludicrous, but come on, just throw some magical technobabble at us! At least pretend to care!) and the general feeling is that the sentiment of 'Ah, let's just stick Cara Delevingne in her underwear and have a crap-tonne of CGI and that'll do for the bad-guy' was prevalent among the producers.

And here we hit the really problematic aspect: the script. The weakness of Cara Delevingne's antagonist highlights one of the key flaws: all of these characters are horrible people. DC Warner were obviously hoping for an equivalent of Guardians of the Galaxy, a fun, action-packed adventure about a bunch of belligerent misfits and ne’er-do-wells banding together and accomplishing something good, all to a killer rock soundtrack. However, part of the problem is that in the classic movies of this kind (think GotG, Ocean's 11, etc.) the protagonists are thieves, con-men and tricksters, not killers. In Suicide Squad, we are supposed to laugh with, empathise with and root for people who have been shown as unrepentant killers, murderers for profit and sport. There is a great difference between making a film about bad people and a film about truly awful people. Making everyone, the government, the crime bosses and the loners all appear villainous doesn't make our protagonists likeable or more moral, it just creates a film of totally reprehensible characters. This is particularly the case with Will Smith's Deadshot, imbued with slightly subdued Will Smith charm and warmth. He has a daughter, who pleaded with him not to shoot Batman (yeah...Batfleck really is one of the better things here!) resulting in Deadshot's arrest and when, in the finale, Enchantress shows them all their heart's desire, we see that his is to have shot Batman. Not to have a life where he's not a killer and sees his daughter all the time, in the knowledge that she can't be affected, or frightened or disappointed by his work, no, he simply wants to have been able to get away with being an assassin. It sounds trite to suggest that they might have 'learnt' something from their adventure, but there is no character development for any of the villains, which leaves the entire débâcle feeling like a waste of time. Indeed, even when faced with the annihilation of the planet in the finale, they don't rally to fight the Enchantress in order to save the world, they do it because they have grown to tolerate the now desperate Flag, whose girlfriend she still shares a body with. You know something is up when the Joker himself feels no more unpleasant, dangerous or uncaring of other's lives than the 'heroes' and this robs him of his effectiveness and makes us wonder why we should care about any of our protagonists. It doesn't help that, despite the hype, Leto's performance gives us just another vaguely odd, creepy criminal, in a film full of them. (Also, he laughs three times and barely even smiles….)

And, having now mentioned him, let us address the green-haired, grinning elephant in the room, and his relationship with Harley, thereby turning our minds to the deeply uncomfortable elements of the film. In her initial appearances in Batman The Animated Series, and her subsequent introduction into the main DCU, Harley appeared as a costumed 'moll', almost hearkening back to the Batman '66 show where such figures were a regular occurrence. She was bubbly, cheery and fun and though somewhat unhinged, evidently neither as psychotic, nor as dangerous as the Joker himself. This was demonstrated particularly in episodes like Harlequinade1, Harley and Ivy2 and especially Harley's Holiday3, in which she is depicted as causing huge amounts of chaos even away from the Joker, but without any malicious intent whatsoever. In Mad Love, first a graphic novel penned by the main writers of BTAS and then adapted into an episode, her back story is finally revealed. She was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, assigned to treat the Joker, who so twisted her mind that she fell in love with him, helped him escape and became his sidekick, all for her devotion to him. What Mad Love also demonstrated was how deeply abusive the relationship was; while previously in the animated series, he had insulted and bullied her, as he did all of his henchmen, here he explodes into a violent assault on her, at the end of which, she blames herself because she 'didn't get the joke'4. It is one of the most sickening and heartbreaking scenes committed to paper or film. For post-Mad Love depictions of their relationship, do take a look here.

Which brings us back to Suicide Squad. In flashback, we see them meeting as psychiatrist and patient and events unfold as one would expect. However, at no point is it suggested that, beyond the initial twisting of Harley's mind, there is anything abusive at play between them. This may sound like a ridiculous thing to say, and of course his manipulation of her into submitting to him in the first place is abusive, but once they are together, they are played as genuinely loving one another. Far from barely noticing when she's gone, as he has done in comics (see the link above) Leto's Joker pines for her, until he begins chasing after the Squad, like a concerned boyfriend in a rom-com. In the flashbacks where we see them together, there is no sense that he is ever violent towards her, or that she is anything but constantly and uniformly happy whenever she is with him; she loves him and wants to be with him, he adores her, and wants to be with her. There is even a suggestion that in his initial manipulation of her, the Joker has unlocked her potential, rather than driven her mad, that she is, in Amanda Waller's words 'crazier than he is'.
Not only is this an inaccurate and offensively irresponsible depiction of the most famous abusive relationship in the comics medium, it also does not help the overall tone of the film. Obviously, for a female character to be portrayed entirely as a victim is highly problematic in itself, but in removing almost all of Harley’s victimhood, it transforms her from another unfortunate polluted by the Joker into a gleeful killer, with as little regard for human life as he has. While the animated series, and many incarnations in the comics, give her a naivete and innocence that counterbalances her criminal activities, Suicide Squad aims for the chirpy attitude, without the essential decency or tragedy of the character that other portrayals have had. When the film is counting heavily on her likeability as a key selling point, this really does not help. Even worse, is that no character development is offered, no suggestion of Harley questioning Mr J's world-view, and the overall effect, as I have said of the others, is to leave the viewer wondering why we should care about any of them.

Overall the film is a mess, with some gorgeous visuals, well-done hints as to the wider DCEU (Batflek plus a sudden, but rather entertaining moment of the Flash) and some excellent acting from actors struggling against the constraints of what feels like a rushed, first draft script. Once again, I single out Margot Robbie, for being genuinely entertaining and bringing so much to a film that overtly sexualises Harley, while it disregards the mixture of innocence and trauma that made the original character so compelling. It is in aspects like these that Suicide Squad, like Man of Steel and BvS, shows a depressing lack of thought, and, although I hope the Patty Jenkins helmed Wonder Woman restores some substance over style to the DCEU, I am beginning to dread every new film they announce.

1 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Harlequinade
2 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Harley_and_Ivy
3 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Harley's_Holiday
4 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Mad_Love