Fun In Parts, "Suicide Squad" Is Still Spoiled By the Same Old Wanky D/C Plotting and Characterization

Will Smith and Margot Robbie display good chemistry in their second 
film together.

Like several of its main characters, Suicide Squad suffers from some sort of personality disorder. At times, it feels fresh, vibrant, and kinetic, operating with the same type of tongue-in-cheek mania that defined Deadpool. But unlike that incredibly successful Marvel adaptation, this D/C Comics joint fouls up many of the basics of superhero 101. The main bad guy sucks of course (that’s usually the way it goes), and the climax involves the same tired race to stop some doohickey from destroying the world (ditto). But worse than the that, the fights aren’t very dynamic, the logic of the whole thing is a mess, and, the characterization is problematic at best. As a result, the film plays a lot like The Losers, another mediocre team-up film from D/C that basically nobody remembers.

However, while The Losers was a totally innocuous property, Suicide Squad features small roles for Batman and Joker, two of the most popular comic book characters on the planet, and thus it can be sold as a major event to fans. As such, it simultaneously reaps the benefit of a built-in audience and gets crushed under the weight of expectations.

When I say small roles, I'm not kidding. Batman (Ben Affleck) and Flash (Ezra Miller) are inserted into short sequences solely to provide set-up for our antiheros. Joker (Jared Leto) has more to do, but not much -- he's really nothing more than tangential chaos on the margins of the main story. He's an interesting tertiary baddie, but he basically rates less on the importance scale than Yondu did in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Instead, the primary focus of the film is on the titular suicide squad, or rather it's supposed to be. The idea here is that ruthless government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) has implanted explosive devices into a gallery of gifted villains, with the aims of forcing them to do the nation's dirty work. It's a familiar concept, but also a good one. Unfortunately, only half the team gets any semblance of development, while the rest serve as little more than set-dressing.

This is comically evident during a finale in which the villain attempts to neutralize our heroes by promising to fulfill their deepest desires. Conflicted mercenary and expert marksman Deadshot (Will Smith), Joker's crazy mol Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), fire-wielding El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), the soldier in charge of all these wackos, all have visions of their desires, but the film doesn't even bother investing the time in the other members of the team, including Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), and martial arts expert Katana (Karen Fukuhara), a character so extraneous that she doesn't even get an introduction in the opening montage.

Not that it would've meant much. In his introduction, Captain Boomerang is shown to be a shit-bag who turns on his accomplices at the first opportunity, and yet, with no development whatsoever, the script has him go all Han Solo/Jack Sparrow in the end. A similar moment occurs with El Diablo, who is far better realized but still doesn't earn his departing line about the team being his new family. Excepting the bonds Deadshot independently forms with Harley and Flag, none of this camaraderie is earned in even a kinda-sorta way. Consider how much less credible these people feel as a team than the characters of Guardians or The Avengers do.

This all sounds super negative, but the film is a mostly enjoyable watch. It's stylish, has a lively soundtrack and some game performances. Smith and Kinnaman are fine anchors, and although he isn't given the room to deliver an iconic take like his forbearers, Leto is interesting as a thug Joker. Robbie and Davis are the standouts, suggesting distinct shades of villainy and vulnerability, which is a pretty cool thing to say when talking about such a dude-heavy movie and genre. As poorly as the film serves the rest of its cast, it serves these characters pretty well, which is a valuable thing since they are the five most important ones. Still, I wish the second tier characters had been afforded the same level of thought that Marvel affords the likes of Scarlett Witch, Vision or Falcon.

But, of course they weren't, because this isn't Marvel, it's D/C. Like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, this feels like a cool concept sunk by poor characterization and screwy plotting. Of chief concern with that last point -- why the hell is Waller even bothering to utilize such potential security threats when she has access to information that could lead her to more heroic accomplices like Batman, Flash and Aquaman (Jason Mamoa)? I'm going to assume it has something to do with a sadistic impulse to control powerful beings, but, once again, that means the D/C Universe is lazily asking me to just assume character beats it's not actually developing (as they did with Lex in Dawn of Justice). Not exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking about when I hope for consistency in such a cinematic universe. C+

David Fincher Masters Multiple Tones in Excellent "Gone Girl"

Gone Girl is one hell of a ride.

It’s extremely difficult to review David Fincher’s Gone Girl without spoiling much of the film’s twist and turns. What I can say is that it’s the type of tale that in lesser hands could easily play like a Lifetime movie, but that with this talented cast and crew is actually one hell of a ride. In many ways it reminded me of Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, another incredibly engaging, darkly amusing melodrama that was far better than it should’ve been.

Much has been written about Gone Girl already – with its most fervent fans arguing it taps into the zeitgeist, taking a satiric look at American values, idealistic marriages and tabloid culture, while the naysayers argue it’s just trashy fun.

I’d call it all of the above. While it’s clear this is a crackerjack genre piece above all else, Fincher weaves in some really potent ideas, particularly pertaining to gender politics, the importance of perception over truth and the ways quirks in a romantic partner can seem cute at first but then grate over time.

As one expects from a Fincher outing, the below the line aspects are all top notch. The cast is great too, with Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike perfectly cast as Nick and Amy Dunne, a seemingly perfect couple with a crumbling marriage. The plot takes off when Amy goes missing and clues begin implicating Nick may have murdered her.

Affleck, so often miscast in traditional hero parts, has always faired best when exploring flaws and humanizing asshole tendencies, while Pike puts her natural screen chilliness, an occasional detriment, to great use here. I’d argue they both put up career best work, hitting each note perfectly in roles that run the gamut from intense drama to dark comedy.

The supporting cast is uniformly great, but special mention should be made of Carrie Coon as Nick’s supportive twin sister (she should really be a player in this year’s Best Supporting Actress race) and, oddly enough, Tyler Perry who, despite his boisterous screen history, totally nails it as Nick’s collected, cut-the-bullshit attorney.

There are some plot holes here that can drive you nuts, most particularly the way in which Amy gets out of a sticky situation with a former flame (there were cameras everywhere!), but I think that maybe that’s part of the point – a way to emphasize how perception and plays at emotion really do trump cold hard logic, sense and facts. This is amazingly illustrated by a late-in-the-game interrogation between Amy and the leader investigator in the film (a great Kim Dickens).

I’ve read some claims that this is a misogynistic film, a nightmare scenario that validates man’s worst fears about getting married, but that’s mostly a crock. While it does play with those notions, the book and script were written by a woman (Gillian Flynn) and Gone Girl has three of the strongest female roles and performances you’re likely to see this year.

Really, Gone Girl is a “have your cake and eat it too” movie – a totally tongue-in-cheek exercise in dark comedy that also manages to be a thrilling and involving drama that gets audiences feeling major sympathy for the wronged party. It’s thought provoking, amusingly horrific and tragically affecting all in one.

Needless to say, I’m a big fan of Gone Girl. It’s definitely the most fun I’ve had with a movie in 2014 and a no-brainer inclusion on my end-of-year best list.A

The CIA Goes Hollywood: Reviewing Argo and Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty and Argo both focus on persistent CIA operatives.

The CIA is getting some time in the limelight this awards season, as two of 2012’s nine Best Picture nominees – Argo and Zero Dark Thirty – focus specifically on real-life, Middle Eastern missions and the organizational maneuvering that went into pulling them off.

Given this, it’s hard not to compare the films, especially since both share a composer (Alexander Desplat) and editor (William Goldenberg), contain a bevy of authentic supporting performances, and feature protagonists who essentially push for a Hail Mary pass to complete their assignments.

 In Argo, director (and producer… and star) Ben Affleck details how the organization extracted six Americans from a hostile Tehran during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis by going with their “best bad plan,” which involved pretending the group was a Canadian scouting crew for a cheesy, science fiction movie called Argo.

Meanwhile, in Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, the director-writer duo examines the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden in the wake of 9/11 through the eyes of Maya (Jessica Chastain), a key operative who identified Osama Bin Laden’s compound hideout and eventually succeeded in convincing her superiors to infiltrate it, despite a 60% probability that Bin Laden was actually there.

The end of both films is a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, Affleck and Bigelow each do excellent work in amping up the tension to the point that each film is an edge-of-your-seat thriller. That said, a fair share of credit should go to Goldenberg, who is Oscar nominated for his work on both films (he shares the credit with Dylan Tchenor on Zero Dark). With this impressive one-two punch, it’s hard to imagine the four-time nominee won’t steamroll his way to his first Oscar.

Despite a lack of strong characterization, Argo emerges
as a tense nail-biter.

Beyond those factors, comparisons between the two do Argo little favors. The film has proven to be a money-making crowd pleaser, which is a tremendous feat for a film set in the Middle East, and it’s also quite good within the limited parameters it sets for itself.

Affleck continues to grow as a filmmaker, and handles the period detail, pacing and constant tonal shifts (the film manages to be equal parts somber, light-hearted, and tense) with aplomb. I also enjoyed the creative use of storyboards during the establishing epilogue, particularly once I realized how it played off the film’s climactic scene.

But, when you boil it down, Argo’s mostly a feel-good, nuts-and-bolts procedural with the added hizzah factor of “Can you believe we pulled this shit off?” There are some interesting implications around the edges about America’s global responsibility, but the film’s more or less a dramatic riff on the capper genre.

There’s also almost nothing in the way of characterization. The Hollywood stuff with Alan Arkin* and John Goodman is played broadly for laughs, and, outside of Scoot McNairy’s nonbeliever, the bulk of the trapped Americans aren’t even given one stock trait. Meanwhile, although Affleck does nice understated work in the lead role, the development of the Mendez character left me wanting more. The fact that such a brazen plan worked is fascinating, but even more interesting (conceivably) should be the man with the audacity to come up with it and then the balls to carry it out. However, except for some sparks in a scene where he shoots down the lame-brained options his CIA associates have come up with, Mendez is largely a muted enigma. Part of me is impressed that Affleck restrained from making his character overly heroic, but it just seems a missed opportunity.

* Although it was largely expected, I still can’t believe the Academy nominated Arkin for this. He’s solid, but there’s almost nothing to the role and there were a bevy of more deserving performances out there. I’m partial to Javier Bardem in Skyfall and Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike, but there are a multitude of other great turns out there as well. I mean, hell, a strong point could be made that Arkin gives the third best supporting turn in his own film (coming in behind McNairy and Bryan Cranston as Mendez’s boss).

Zero Dark Thirty has no such problem. Even though Maya is given absolutely no background (unlike the perfunctory marital/father baggage Affleck’s Mendez gets), Chastain is utterly riveting as the strong-willed, uncompromising field agent, who remains resolutely convinced that Bin Laden is not holed away in some cave as popular opinion suggests, but rather hidden in a major city with access to comfort and technology. As she puts it, “You can't run a global network of interconnected cells from a cave.”

Despite commercials that suggest an action-packed Navy Seal story, the first two hours of the movie are all about Maya’s painstaking search. And that was almost definitely the way to go with a story like this. Since we all lived through these events, a pure “this is what happened” account would’ve been a little redundant. Instead, what they’ve done here is give us a riveting story of obsession.



Jessica Chastain's forceful lead turn elevates Zero Dark
Thirty.

Late in the film, Maya is asked, “What other cases have you done besides Bin Laden?” and she responds by saying “Nothing … I’ve done nothing else, sir.” She’s a modern day Captain Ahab, except she actually succeeds in her mission, and is forced to live in the aftermath of her completed objective. As the Navy Seal team celebrates their victory, she stands apart, silent and alone. And in a closing scene that evokes the final tone of The Hurt Locker, Maya sits by herself in a cavernous air carrier with tears flowing down her face, unable to answer the question “Where do you want to go?” We’re left with the implication that the victory is bittersweet and hollow, that this woman has been robbed of her purpose and now faces a future of uncertainty and crippling emptiness.

A great deal has been made about the torture scenes in the film, with many suggesting the film is pro torture. That, of course, is total nonsense. Yes the film shows torture, and implies a kernel of information was obtained via such methods, but it makes no overt attempt to support such practices. Instead, the film remains morally ambiguous, and, it allows the viewer a peek at the inhumanity used in an attempt to keep the world safe. Not including these scenes would be a total whitewashing of the facts, and it would’ve made the film seem like some sort of propaganda. That’s all I’ll say on the topic, but for those interested, I’d recommend reading the piece author Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down and The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden) wrote for The Atlantic.

The film orbits around Chastain’s Maya, but there are plenty of other interesting performances laced throughout as well. Jason Clarke makes a strong impression as Dan, who is shown to be an intelligent and sensitive at times, but does not shy away from getting information by any means necessary, whether it’s greasing foreign businessmen or using torture tactics like water boarding.  An interesting choice was made to have Clarke clean cut in all of his D.C. scenes and to be sporting scraggily hair and a beard when working abroad. It’s as if he puts on a new face, and maybe even jumps into an entirely different mindset, when segueing into a far more amoral role in the fight against terrorism.

Jennifer Ehle and Mark Strong also stand out in the uniformly impressive cast. Ehle projects the same authenticity, humanity and sensitivity she brought to Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, and after entering the film in a wonderfully blustery rant at the midway point, Strong brings a great deal of nuance to Maya’s stern, yet ultimately supportive boss.

Ultimately, both films are excellent additions to the thriller genre, and I’m happy they’ve been so successful, since they typify the intelligent, well-crafted mainstream films the movie business needs more of. Argo B+, Zero Dark Thirty A