Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn)

Revvin' Up Yer Ol' Harley
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Pow! BAM! ZAP! Biff!  Plop!

Suicide Squad is destined to be remembered as not "one of the good" DCEU movies, probably because the film-makers were a bit confused about what kind of comic-book movie people wanted to see—the geniuses at Warner Brothers figured that Christopher Nolan's Batman movies worked so well that the movies should be dark, take themselves seriously and never wink at the audience. No primary colors, only leather costumes, and "deconstructed" to show how superheroes would be operating in the "real world."

The answer, apparently, is "not very well."

But, the most unlikely of the movies—the ones that were delayed as potential box-office poison (Wonder Woman) or an industry joke (Aquaman)—showed that "grim n' gritty" won't make a comic book movie respectable. Working very hard to make a good comic book movie entertaining does.

What everybody remembers from Suicide Squad (and probably the reason they went in the first place) was the character of Harley Quinn. The character was introduced in the "Batman: The Animated Series" cartoon in 1992 and, frankly, one of the few "recent" additions to the Batman "Rogues Gallery" to have stuck around to become popular. A lot of actresses could have played Quinn and done well with it, so it actually didn't have to be the latest "it" girl, Margot Robbie. But, Robbie is smart enough to know that her character work will supply longevity and she is "player" enough to push a Harley Quinn movie through development, even before a Squad sequel could be made.

The result—Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)* The title suggests something larky, a suggestion that isn't quite fulfilled unless Robbie's Harley is on the screen. Without that character's giddy sociopathy, the film would be just an unpleasant gangster movie, no matter how many bright primary colors are thrown into the mix. The movie is all her, and, sure, there are more of the DC female vigilante's thrown into the mix, but they're there to have the main character have someone to bounce off, like Margaret Dumont to Groucho Marx and the female empowerment story isn't strong enough unless Quinn's anarchy is there to light the fuse while hap-hazardly threatening to stamp it out.

The film gets off to a roaring start by doing the most important thing right off the bludgeoning bat—blowing up the most toxic relationship in all of comics. Harley Quinn may be a favorite of fan-boys, but there's always been something icky about the character—her complete and total devotion to being a doormat for The Joker (who does not appear, as Jared Leto who had the role in Suicide Squad was unavailable and Joaquin Phoenix is too busy picking up trophies**). Harley plays unreliable narrator to an animated story of her life—for those who came in late—and explains that she and the Joker have had an unamicable break-up that *good news* she has managed to survive! Despite her past skills as a psychologist—and because she is bat-shit crazy—she finds a dive apartment above a Gotham City Chinese restaurant, chops off her hair, drinks heavily, and joins the roller derby to work off some of the aggression that she can't shake by throwing knives at a picture of the Joker hanging on her wall. 

She gets a pet, a hyena she calls "Bruce," (a Superman-sized wink on that), moons over the "perfect egg sandwich", and hits the bars at night, particularly The Black Mask Club, run by the gangster Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor). Even though she's a perpetual train-wreck in the place, Sionis turns a blind eye because she's the Joker's squeeze and that affords her a certain amount of protection, even when she cripples Sionis' driver. But, pretty soon pride wins out and she announces the break-up to the world by driving an oil tanker truck into "their place," the Ace Chemical Factory, which explodes in a celebratory light-show.

This alerts the Gotham City Police that Harley is fair game for arrest for (well) a lot of property damage, and Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) of the GCPD is determined to bring her in, despite the presence of a serial killer, dubbed "The Crossbow Killer," who has been winnowing out a lot of Gotham's underworld. 

Plus, there's Sionis, who is trying to find something called "the Bertinelli diamond" which has etched in its facets the codes to all the accounts of the Bertinelli crime family, who were wiped out in an assassination years before. Sionis is after the diamond and uses his henchman Victor Szasz (Chris Messina—the character also appeared in Batman Begins) to extract information from sources by cutting their faces off (yeah, not so much fun, huh?)

Cut (very poor choice of words) to the McGuffin—it is that Bertinelli diamond and everybody wants it. Sionis wants it and he wants Harley to get it. "The Crossbow Killer" wants it. Montoya wants it and she wants Sionis' new driver Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell)—who performs at his club as a singer with a special octave range—to tell her where it is. Szasz used to have it but it was pick-pocketed by a street-urchin named Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) who Harley takes pity on and takes under her wing. It is complicated, and it isn't helped by the fact that Harley is the film's narrator and...she skips parts and has to rewind to fill those parts in.

On top of that, the film has to have some sort of action every ten minutes or so, and fortunately director Cathy Yan manages to perform the plate-spinning act of keeping the film active with all that exposition and back-story—and the back and forth story-telling actually keeps it from flagging. She's also good at action, even when it's a group-fight among quite a few number of people. There is the temptation, given that the last fight takes place in a Burton-esque fun-house called "The Booby-Trap"*** and with a color-palette suggestive of Schumacher's Batman and Robin that Yan might be harkening back to the old "Batman"-TV series—only with better stunts and no OOF! graphics.

The acting is across the map: Robbie and McGregor are putting as much theatricality into it as they can, verging on going over the top. Rosie Perez is playing it straight and bad-ass. Smollett-Bell's Lance/Canary feels a little restrained when her character's conflicted, but once she becomes a part of the "Birds" group of Montoya/Canary/Huntress, she's great. The most interesting performance is by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who is usually terrific, but her playing of the character "The Huntress" is in a style I'd call full-on-Tig Notaro (not that there's anything wrong with that—Notaro is a personal favorite), but, admittedly, the character she plays is...a bit bizarre—not in the comic-book world, but definitely a bit grimmer than everybody else. Combine her with Robbie's odd-ball and the others semi-playing it straight, there was really nowhere for her to go—the character is underwritten, despite having a 'presence" in the film—except to take the kinda straight/kinda "weird" approach that she does.

So, it's not the sure-fire "Hey, yer gonna have a GREAT time" kind of movie all the Robbie-promotion promises—it's just that it's is the most enjoyable and exploitable part of it. One is tempted to say that all the best parts are in the trailer, but that simply isn't true. It's merely that the "sizzle" aspect is all centered on one character, and unless one wanted to do a Comedy of Errors in Gotham City type of movie (which, actually, might not be a bad idea, given the grimness of the place, historically), there's going to be the risk of a burn-out factor and the risk of the character of Harley Quinn out-wearing her welcome if something isn't counter-balancing her. There's got to be a little arsenic in the sugar bowl or you might as well start budgeting for the BIFF! POW! ZAM! graphics that have been what the comics industry has been trying to get away from for decades.

* Owing to poor opening weekend receipts the title has subsequently been alternately displayed as Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (maybe because some folks might think Harley Quinn's not in it).

** Can you imagine the disconnect if you paired Robbie's Harley Quinn with Joaquin Phoenix's Joker? The idea makes one's skin crawl, so we'll just assume that his Joker lives in alternate dimension, on Earth-Scorsese.

*** Some examples of production design: 

Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

"Now, watch and I'll show you the story of Life..."

It's been 22 years since Spike Lee launched his "Our Town" in Bed-Stuy, with Rosie Perez's aggressively pneumatic dance to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." Twenty two years since the critics came out of the screening at Cannes saying that Lee's movie would foment race riots throughout the Summer, rather than cause the orderly lines around the block it did. Twenty two years since Lee debuted his movie about a particularly special day in the battle between Love and Hate: the hottest day of the Summer, the best day that Sal's Pizzeria ever had, the day Da Mayor (the late, great Ossie Davis) did another heroic thing in his life.

The day the music died.

And the worst day that Sal's Pizzeria ever had.

And someone's responsible—the least responsible member of the community.Do The Right Thing is Lee's version of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" (but not with slices of middle-American white-bread life) and everyone (but everyone) thinks they're the Stage Manager. It's Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" with attitude, as all the characters have one aspect that defines their personality and, like the strip, something radical has to happen in order for them to break out of their self-inflicted stereotypes.* And maybe grow up.

The diverse, huge cast and series of one act diversions is a culmination of something Lee's been saying since the beginning and folk of all types have been mis-reading. It's not about black versus white versus Latino versus Korean versus Jewish. It's "us" against "them," cop versus citizen, young versus old, man against woman, and this particular pizza, forged in the heat, can be sliced all sorts of ways, but probably not equally. Because when it comes to hate, there's no such thing as fair.

Except your fair share of it.

What it is is the age-old tribal struggle of the pissing match between privilege and entitlement and who thinks who's got what. Everybody marks their territories with lines of death that no one can cross. And on the hottest day of the year, those lines get mighty stinky.

The last words of Lee's previous film, School Daze, are the first ones in Do the Right Thing: "Wake Up." In the previous film, they are hollered by Dap (Laurence Fishburne) in frustration and desperation, a protest. In DTRT, it's the reveille of Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) at the start of his shift on We Love Radio, but the context is the same. Become awake. Become aware. Don't sleep-walk. Look alive. It's a warning, but still a wake-up call.  Open your eyes, people.

The wandering begins along the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant color-filtered through Ernest Dickerson's floating lens.  Ugly attitudes have never been so beautifully filmed, approaching M-G-M Technicolor in its vibrancy and beauty.  The crowds ebb and flow, clash, curse and break apart, some wander like vagabonds, while others, acting as a Greek chorus, stay planted and observe and trash-talk. Locations vary between street and stage, at time, sometimes appearing to be aflame with color from the heat...but the constant music (like the American Graffiti soundtrack) emanates from boom-boxes and radios and the nearby station, mixing genres and styles—a polyglot of aural wallpaper, something for everyone. 

Do the Right Thing might not be Lee's most accomplished work—I think that might be Malcolm X, for its breadth and depth—but, it is the one that shows his love of movies. Take for example, the bling-knuckled demonstration by Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn)of Love and Hate, taken with few differences from The Night of the Hunter:

The Mitchum soliloquy ends with the old woman saying "I ain't ever heard it better told," whereas Lee's Mookie, after an uncomfortable pause, sums it up dead-pan comically ("There it is, Love and Hate") and non-committally (as he is wont to do until the end). Mookie is the fraying thread that holds the film together, despite his lack of ambition and any sense of active responsibility—Lee habitually plays characters in his films that are morally problematic (as opposed to M. Night Shamyalan's parts in his own films). He pairs him up with John Turturro's Pino (racist with no dolby and nor squelch and no backbone), when Sal treats Mookie's sister (Joie Lee) as a treasured customer. For both Mookie and Pino, the kindness crosses the line, is suspect and turns the heat up a bit on their attitudes. It's the one thing they agree on, but for different reasons (Pino, because she's black; Mookie, because she's family).

That complexity belies the simple tale of Love and Hate, pointedly, and Lee's entire film offers a tragic counter-point. It's never sure who to bet on in the fight, as both sides will take rounds and both sides will sustain damage. And we might not even know when the fight is over.

But I ain't ever seen it better told.

In 1999, The Library of Congress inducted Do the Right Thing into The National Film Registry, just 10 years after its debut, and the first year it was eligible.

* One character—Danny Aiello's top-lined Sal—is consistently inconsistent, due in part to Aiello's ad-libbing  sections of Lee's script, which Lee allowed him to do, perhaps to build dramatic tension about what the man is going to do.  We'll look at a key scene—and how it differs from Lee's script in this Sunday's "Don't Make a Scene."

The Counselor

Couples Therapy
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How to Get a Head in Business

The Counselor is not "The Worst Movie Ever Made" (as some would have it) nor should such a withering condemnation (from a critic? *pfft*) warrant it any sort of pity-praise to escalate it above what it deserves. Pity is the last thing on the mind of The Counselor.

What it is is the first original screenplay by Cormac McCarthy—he also exec-produced—and directed, with a lavish budget for just about everything, including dirt, by Ridley Scott, who one should now probably call a "stylist," rather than a director. Everything looks great. But, again, one wonders if Scott read the script beyond descriptions.  

Like so much of McCarthy's work, it is dark and gritty and nihilistic—in a hopeful, moral kind of way; in other words, it's a story or very bad people doing very bad things from the point of view of a person who is tsk-ing in the background. Perfect director for this would have been Martin Scorsese. But, it's Ridley Scott who, given his past, seems to have a lot of sympathy for the devil (Blade Runner, Legend, Hannibal, Matchstick Men, American Gangster, Prometheus), indeed, in his last movie, the hero was, once again, a synthetic human being with its own sense of ethics. That synth was played, rather brilliantly, by Michael Fassbender, which is why he's the titular lead.

The thing about novelists doing screenplays and writing for the movies is they're slumming, unless they see themselves as legitimate film-makers (see the Coen Brothers or John Sayles).  Maybe McCarthy couldn't flesh out his characters for the novel form. Maybe he wanted to see what a film-maker wanted to do with a work he wasn't happy with and see what the collaborative process would produce. Maybe he wanted to make some money. But, for whatever reason, McCarthy chose to do this as a film, and not a fully thought out novel.

"...red in tooth and claw"

Maybe he just didn't like it. It's extraordinarily simplistic—The Counselor spends the first half warning its protagonist "Don't do this" and casually mentioning ways in which people can be killed, usually involving decapitation ("it's just business"). Once he's "locked in," it spends the second half eliminating most of the cast in precisely the ways that have been described in the first half. It answers the question that is contained in a couple of questions in that first half—"Why am I telling you this?" Obviously, so we can anticipate it being used later and knowing what's happening. In other words, literally, the first half of The Counselor is a prolonged "you just don't get it, do you?" speech. The second half, he gets it (I'd warn about spoilers here, but everything is telegraphed fairly early on, even "the surprise" puppet-master of the thing).

One interesting aspect of The Counselor is the cast...or, at least, the cast as it once was. Fassbender was always going to be in it, evidently, but the others were going to be real-life couples Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, but slightly scrambled so that Bardem and Jolie would be a couple and Fassbender and Cruz would be paired. At some point, Jolie dropped out and Cameron Diaz was cast in her role. She's as fine as everybody else in the cast, but the dialog is difficult for swallow.  Take for example, this:

I suspect that we are ill-formed for the path we have chosen. Ill-formed and ill-prepared. We would like to draw a veil over all the blood and terror that have brought us to this place. It is our faintness of heart that would close our eyes to all of that, but in so doing it makes of it our destiny... But nothing is crueler than a coward, and the slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining.

I remember a scene from the Elia Kazan film of The Last Tycoon where movie mogul Monroe Stahr in a fit of pique exits a screening saying "'And I, you...' nobody TALKS like that." Everybody talks like that in The Counselor, everybody's vocabulary is up to snuff, and everybody has the time to ponder and philosophize. But what their philosophy centers around is Nature, "red in tooth and claw." But Nature doesn't have the time to think about what it is doing, except strategically. If there is a slaughter to come for the human race, the meek won't inherit the Earth, but evidently the pretentious will. 

Everybody talks a good game in The Counselor, but it makes a bad movie.