Suicide Squad opens with a government agent making a pitch that sounds reasonable until you hear the details. Amanda Waller wants a team of imprisoned supervillains for black ops work. The deal is simple: they take the mission, they get time off their sentences. If they run, the nanite bomb in each neck goes off.
David Ayer wrote and directed the film, the third installment in the DC Extended Universe. It runs 122 minutes. Warner Bros. released it in the United States on August 5, 2016, after a New York City premiere on August 1.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
Viola Davis Runs the Room
The film’s best asset is Viola Davis as Waller. She plays the intelligence officer as a bureaucrat first and a monster second, which is the right order. Waller seizes the magical heart of the Enchantress, the witch who possesses archaeologist June Moone, to keep her under control. She plants bombs in her own recruits. She withholds the fact that her subordinate Colonel Rick Flag is in love with Moone. Every one of those choices is a betrayal, and Davis never asks you to like her for it.
The plot turns when Enchantress betrays Waller. She conquers Midway City, turns humans into monsters, and summons her brother Incubus to destroy mankind. Task Force X is assembled to stop her.
Six Inmates and a Shot-Down Helicopter
The roster comes from Belle Reve penitentiary. Will Smith plays Deadshot, a hitman who wants to see his daughter Zoe again. Margot Robbie plays Harley Quinn, the former Arkham psychiatrist turned partner of the Joker. Jai Courtney is Captain Boomerang, an Australian thief with boomerangs. Jay Hernandez is Diablo, a pyrokinetic ex-gangster. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is Killer Croc, a mutant cannibal. Adam Beach is Slipknot, a rope-climbing mercenary.
The helicopter gets shot down over Midway City, forcing the team to walk. Boomerang talks Slipknot into running by suggesting the bombs are fake. Flag detonates Slipknot’s bomb and kills him. That answers Boomerang’s question about whether the bombs are real.
Jared Leto’s Joker Is Barely in the Movie
Leto’s Joker is the film’s strangest problem. He described the role as “nearly Shakespearean” and a “beautiful disaster of a character.” He said he took a deep dive and called the psychological games fun but painful. He never broke character on set, and Smith said he never met him. Leto listened to 1920s gospel music and read about shamanism to prepare. Ayer added the tattoos himself, aiming for a modernized gangster look. David Bowie was an influence.
None of that work lands in the finished film. The Joker is a side attraction in a story that already has too many. The performance is a collection of gestures with no scene to hold them.
What Ayer Has Said Since
Suicide Squad grossed $749 million against a $175 million budget. It was the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2016. It won Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 89th Academy Awards, the only film in the DC Extended Universe to win an Oscar.
It also got mostly negative reviews. Ayer disowned the film after release, saying extensive studio interference ruined his vision. That claim is worth weighing against what is on screen. A messy film can still be a director’s mess, and nothing here suggests a cleaner cut was waiting.
The Casting Was Never the Issue
Comic writer John Ostrander, who created the modern Suicide Squad, told Comic Book Resources he had no problem with the casting. He said he was impressed the production got “some very good actors to play these parts.” He was right. Smith is steady as Deadshot. Robbie makes Harley funny, crazy and scary at once, which is roughly how producer Richard Suckle described the character. Hernandez gives Diablo the only quiet beat in the film.
The script is what fails them. Ayer has a team of six villains plus Flag, Katana and Waller, and he gives each one a single trait instead of a person. The film announces Harley is volatile, then shows her being volatile. It announces Deadshot loves his daughter, then shows him looking at a picture.
The Bomb Goes Off Once
Suicide Squad wants the energy of a heist film and the stakes of an apocalypse, and it gets neither. The middle stretch in Midway City is a slog through dark hallways and interchangeable monsters. The nanite bomb is a good mechanic — it makes every escape attempt a test of nerve — but the film uses it once, on Slipknot, and then forgets it.
The $749 million gross says audiences showed up. The reviews and Ayer’s own disavowal say they did not get what was promised. Both things can be true, and both are.
Key facts
– Release date: August 5, 2016 (US)
– Runtime: 122 minutes
– Budget: $175 million
– Gross: $749 million
– Director/writer: David Ayer
– Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach
– Academy Award: Best Makeup and Hairstyling, 89th Academy Awards
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
