http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386697/?ref_=nv_sr_1

It feels good to be bad…Assemble a team of the world’s most dangerous, incarcerated Super Villains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal, and send them off on a mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity. U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has determined only a secretly convened group of disparate, despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose will do. However, once they realize they weren’t picked to succeed but chosen for their patent culpability when they inevitably fail, will the Suicide Squad resolve to die trying, or decide it’s every man for himself?

IMDb: 6.5

Let’s get some facts straight before we begin …

• Yes, Suicide Squad is a shitshow
• No, it wasn’t quite as bad as most critics told us
• The movie was kinda completely different from what we expected
• Much to our own surprise we actually were entertained

SS was one of those typical “made by committee” products we got too many of lately. And as it so happens in most committees, the cowards, the accountants have the last word. And as it also happens that never leads to a well-rounded, satisfying product.

In the case of SS we got presented with a clusterfuck of initially good ideas, a wealth of talent but no direction. At all! How come the first 52 minutes of the movie are character establishing scenes, and still we don’t give a single fuck about any of our main characters?

And when the mission (the action) finally starts we’re so confused with the mission’s goals and targets, we don’t give a fuck about it neither. The whole setup seems to make no sense and you really need a huge portion of bullshit tolerance, not to run out of the movie screaming and kicking. But once you’ve dumbed down enough it’s actually quite enjoyable.

Because, let’s face it, the whole movie rests on the shoulders of Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). We could make it even narrower: The movie in principle tells the tragic story of Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel). Her tragically unrequited love for The Joker (Jared Leto in a lame attempt to act like Heath Ledger) is kinda the focal point of SS while at the same time it feels like an afterthought of the aforementioned committee.

We’ve all heard the stories about the joker won’t have any screentime at all in this movie but the product we watched last night had  many scenes with him in it. He just wasn’t a part of the Suicide Squad but was following his own, totally unconnected, agenda. Anyway, Harley Quinn is batshit bonkers and that’s about the best part of SS. And it could have been so much more, so much better.

Will Smith is an impressive screen persona. That’s just him and that’s about it as well. All the rest of this ragtag crew are hollow cartoon figures without much presence or weight to their characters. They are just there to fill up the squad without adding anything to the story.

By the way, that story … what was that please? The studio – you know that anonymous committee – obviously tried to stuff as much much meaningful, intriguing shit into the story as possible. All they managed to do was losing our interest and attention. I’mn not  a fan of simple shit but in case of SS it would’ve helped quite a bit.

“Hey, you are bad guys, worst of the worst. Here we have a situation that only you can solve. Go in and if you survive you’re pardoned or somthing.” That would’ve been simple and effective. But no, SS had to spin a big tale around it all with unnecessary and boring plot twists that even turned the whole premise of SS upside down.

Government bitch Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is such an evil, ruthless badass, declaring a whole city as open shooting range and giving less than zero fucks about any civilian lifes, our worst of the worst criminals look like fucking boyscouts compared to her. In the end they indeed turn out to be the better human beings. And that’s again unneeded, unhelpful resentiments which made the movie worser than necessary.

Fortunately SS could at least convince us on technical merits alone. The tempo was upbeat, the action was very good and even had some heft to it, camera and light was up to where it is today. In the end we were not bored. And that is already a huge accomplishment for any movie.

Of course I stick to my initial judgement of Shitshow but at least SS wasn’t the worst film of the year. And let’s be honest, we watched a lot of really, like really really, bad movies in 2016.

CONCLUSION:

Bad, really pretty bad … but not quite as bad as assumed. Can even be entertaining when you are young of heart and mind.

WATCH IT?

Not necessarily. But if you do make sure you are stocked up on popcorn and beer.

WHAT THE PROFESSIONALS THINKERED: