The Suicide Squad

I was one of the few that didn’t mind the original Suicide Squad, but I concede it has a multitude of problems.  Namely, the fact that the studio got gun shy and decided to re-edit the movie with a trailer company to make it more like Guardians of the Galaxy.  As a result, you got a movie that was not the sum of its parts; it felt more like an assortment of music videos than an actual movie.  Its only saving grace to me was the charismatic performances of Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Fortunately, this soft reboot of The Suicide Squad is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor. For starters, it’s not afraid to make these characters criminals.  

Sure, they have flashes of humanity here and there, but these guys are a bunch of criminals and mercenaries. The most human character is Rat-catcher 2, who throughout the movie has a bond of sorts with Bloodsport.  It’s not a romantic relationship per se, it’s more of a surrogate father-daughter relationship which I thought was nice.  It gave the movie much-needed humanity in my book. Rat-catcher also gets a nice moment during the culmination of the big battle with Starro.  I also like how unpredictable this movie is. You never know who’s going to die from one moment to the next. 

For example, Harley Quinn has a certain dalliance with a Corto Maltese President that plays not the way you think it would.  It’s not a perfect movie by any means. It suffers from maybe too many characters and subplots, and there’s some spotty CGI here and there, but it has a certain irreverent charm that I like in a blockbuster.  This is Troma James Gunn, not Disney James Gunn, so be prepared for a lot of gore and sci-fi weirdness that you wouldn’t expect from a mainstream movie.  I got the sense that Warner Media left James Gunn alone and allowed him to make a 185 million big-budget Grindhouse movie.  If it were not for the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, I don’t think that would have happened.  So count your lucky stars that a movie as audacious as this got made.  

For example, Harley Quinn has a certain dalliance with a Corto Maltese President that plays not the way you think it would.  It’s not a perfect movie by any means.  It suffers from too many characters and subplots, and there’s some spotty CGI here and there, but it has a certain irreverent charm that I like in a blockbuster.  This Troma James Gunn not Disney James Gunn, so be prepared for a lot of gore and sci-fi weirdness that you wouldn’t expect from a mainstream movie.  I got the sense that Warner Media left James Gunn alone and allowed him to make a 185 million big-budget Grindhouse movie.  If it were not for the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, I don’t think that would have happened.  So count your lucky stars that a movie as audacious as this got made.

Judas and the Black Messiah

 

You know between Get Out, Black Panther, and now Judas and The Black Messiah Daniel Kaluuya is shaping up to be a great actor.  This is a powerful movie about betrayal, political corruption, and black liberation.  Daniel Kaluuya plays Fred Hampton, a black revolutionary who mobilizes people not by violence but by persuasive rhetoric.  You get the sense that if it were not for the insidious machinations of the FBI and the police department, Hampton would have created a rainbow coalition of all races to combat social injustice.  Alas, that rainbow coalition was not meant to be.  Anyway, I digress, as performances go, Kaluuya knocks it out of the park. He has a tremendous screen presence and he delivers the rousing speeches with gusto. 

As great as Kaluuya is, I would argue Lakeith Stanfield has the trickier role, playing William O’ Neal.  He has to play the betrayer sure, but he also has to play a character that is in awe of Fred Hampton, but not at the expense of his own self-preservation.  When you boil him down to his bare essentials, O’ Neal is just a cudgel for the FBI to dismantle the Black Panther movement.   But I will say this: Stanfield brings a lot of humanity to a character that is ultimately not very likable which I think is the point.  I don’t have many grievances against the film, aside from some minor technical issues.  I had an issue with Martin Sheen’s make-up, not his performance. 

Sheen plays a racist prick to a tilt, but that prosthetic make-up was so distracting to me.  He looked more like a Dick Tracy villain, not J Edgar Hoover.  Honestly, the filmmakers should have just let Martin Sheen play the role without makeup.  But hey that’s just my opinion.  This movie features a great ensemble of acting talent and there’s not a weak performance in the bunch.  This film is really about Fred Hampton and William O’ Neal, and how they compare and contrast with each other.  This movie is obviously not an easy watch given the subject matter.   But, it’s worth watching for the performances alone, and it gives you a look at the darker parts of American History.