The Capote Tapes: A Review

 

THE CAPOTE TAPES

Truman Capote: writer, bon vivant, enfant terrible, self-destructive drunk. He was all that and so much more. The Capote Tapes, taped interviews with his friends, lovers and enemies unheard until now, gives us a glimpse into the rise and fall of one of America's most celebrated creative forces.

Using newly recorded interviews along with the audiotapes writer George Plimpton recorded shortly after Capote's death in 1984, The Capote Tapes allows those who knew Capote (or thought they knew him) speak their minds. Capote, this poor son of the South with a fantastic imagination and open homosexual lifestyle, charmed and wrote his way into the upper echelons of New York City high society.

Despite being openly gay the upper-class beauties of high society gravitated and were enraptured with Capote. He in turn gravitated and was enraptured by these women whom he dubbed his "swans". However, part of him worked to expose them. Whether it was subconscious revenge for his mother's suicide due to her failed efforts to be a society doyenne or the belief that his own genius would save him, Capote's poison pen brought him nothing but ruin. His long-gestating novel based on his swans, Answered Prayers, created an absolute scandal despite only snippets ever being published. 

The man who had brought the world the ultimate in posh grandness with the Black and White Ball, hobnobbing with the elite of the the elites, now was reduced to partying it up with virtual peasants at Studio 54, drinking and drugging through "a haze of pain" at the loss of his swans. All for a book that might not have ever existed. 

The Capote Tapes are fascinating to listen to and serve as the de facto narrative to the documentary. As various figures such as fellow writer Norman Mailer to C.Z. Guest (one of the few Swans to stay loyal to Capote) remember their friend/frenemy, we see behind Capote's persona. Another of his Swans, Slim Keith, recalls to Plimpton an incident when Capote rejected the idea that Keith "loved" him.

"People are amused by me, fascinated by me but they don't love me", he said. It's a sad confession for someone who gave people the impression he was the life of the party.

Other revelations aren't as sad. They appear instead rather malevolent. Another writer, William F. Buckley, was not impressed with Capote's "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood. "We've only had seven executions in the past five years," Buckley states, adding with a hint of venom, "and two of them were for the personal convenience of Truman Capote". Given that Buckley was not opposed to capital punishment, such a declaration is a bit surprising.

The Capote Tapes hint at Capote's arrogance towards his Swans, a contempt mixed with fascination. "I'm a writer. Did they think I was with them because I thought they were interesting?" he once observed after the scandal over the Answered Prayers excerpts were published. Whether he saw himself as the Swan's court jester or the chronicler of their sordid lives we do not know.

We also cannot know what he thought of his exile from The Land of Swans to The Land of Disco, but I can imagine that it must have been a hard blow. Despite the wild, hedonistic abandon of the club scene there is something sad about this old man shaking his groove thing when once he waltzed with duchesses and princesses. One contemporary interview recalled that he looked like "a little aged dwarf" as he shuffled about in the daylight. 

We do get a more sympathetic view from Capote's adopted daughter Kate Harrington (whose father had an affair with Capote). She recalls a hard-working writer who welcomed her into a world of literature and art, though also a gossip who wandered away from writing to indulging in worldly pleasures.

Capote fans and those who know him more by reputation will find interesting information and revelations about the writer through The Capote Tapes. Even those who have seen Infamous or Capote (or the notorious Stanley Siegel interview) will learn new details and gain greater appreciation for Truman Capote's work and legacy good and bad. 

DECISION: B-

Jane Fonda in Five Acts: A Review

 

JANE FONDA IN FIVE ACTS

Few actors have been as wildly divisive as Jane Fonda. In the opening of the documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts, none other than President Richard Nixon captured her best with his description of Fonda. "She's a great actress, she looks pretty, but boy she's often on the wrong track". At the then-age of 81, Fonda can look back on the highs and lows of her life and career. Jane Fonda in Five Acts hits some interesting notes but sometimes feels like a hagiography and slog to sit through.

As she reflects, Fonda divides her life into five acts: Henry, Vadim, Tom, Ted and Jane. The first is her father, Henry Fonda, and her efforts to both come out of his shadow and repair their frosty, distant relationship. Vadim goes into her first marriage to French director Roger Vadim, who essentially pushed her into becoming a sex symbol via his film, the erotic science-fiction Barbarella. Tom, which dominates the documentary, regards her second husband, activist Tom Hayden: their joint anti-Vietnam War activism, their almost strident lower-middle-class lifestyle and how her workout empire was created to fund their various causes. Ted is her stint with her third husband, media mogul Ted Turner. Jane is on her comeback to film.

Jane Fonda in Five Acts does have surprising information. I think many people would not have known that her start as a fitness queen was due to finding revenue for her and Hayden's Campaign for Economic Equality. We also find that when she filmed the striptease opening to Barbarella, not only was the final footage the second take (the first ruined by a bat that had wandered in) but that she was drunk and hungover when she filmed it. Fonda, who was interviewed for the documentary, also admits that she wasn't crazy about Monster-in-Law but knew that people would see the film because of Jennifer Lopez. Maybe by appearing with a big star like Lopez, she speculates, people would discover or rediscover Jane Fonda.

At over two hours, Jane Fonda in Five Acts is surprisingly focused on Act Three: Tom. This is when her political activism was at its zenith, and Fonda does not come across as particularly pleasant. While the infamous footage of her sitting at an anti-aircraft gun with the North Vietnamese will always damn her to some people, Fonda's radio broadcast on Radio Hanoi during the trip is not as well-known.

Act Two has a news report on her separation from Vadim. It states that at one point, he called her "Jane of Arc", a wisecrack with which she was not amused by. Added Vadim via the report that "to take on the sins of her country, she has lost her sense of humor".

Truth be told, she still comes across as a bit of self-serious figure (she was not asked about Vadim's quips). In the footage from her Vietnam-era days, Fonda appears to openly criticize former prisoners of war as brainwashed, useful idiots for Nixon. She does state that "I'm proud of most of what I did (with regards the protest movement) and I'm very sorry for some what I did". Talk show host Dick Cavett, a friend and supporter, also seems to think dimly on her actions, calling them "tactless". 

Later, when her son Troy Garity remembers how his first thirteen birthday parties were fundraisers for his parents' various causes, such details make Fonda almost unaware that her children became tools to further whatever cause du jour she embraced. Garity may find nothing wrong with that, but somehow that detail sounds a touch peculiar.

Jane Fonda in Five Acts does not delve into why her activism inspires so much ire. It is not self-reflective in that way. It is, though, on the personal, and we learn that despite being firmly feminist, for most of her life Fonda was dominated by men. There's the talented father who according to her late brother Peter "has to have the mask in order to express", an interesting way of saying Henry Fonda was emotionally lost without a script. Working with a dominating director, a firm activist and a macho persona respectively, Fonda could never balance a relationship with her own views.

In those moments, when we see Fonda evolve to being a Woman and person, we have good moments. When it comes to her career itself or her political activism, how she evolved to being a Woman of the Left, we get very little.

For better or worse, it will be difficult to nearly impossible to separate Jane Fonda the actress with Jane Fonda the activist. Jane Fonda in Five Acts is a good, albeit long, primer on her life and career as she sees it. What the final act or whole legacy will be remains to be written. 

DECISION: C+

The Corn is Green (1979): The Television Movie

 

THE CORN IS GREEN

The Corn is Green, in its brief running time, tells a rich and beautiful story so well, with such effective performances and breathtaking scenery, that it transcends its play origins and becomes the moving tale it seeks to be.

Spinster Lily Moffatt (Katharine Hepburn) comes to a Welsh town after inheriting a small estate. Along with her reformed maid Watty (Patricia Hayes) and Watty's shrewish daughter Bessie (Toyah Willcox), Miss Moffatt sets up her new residence. 

Miss Moffatt quietly and elegantly barrels through all opposition to set up a school for the community despite firm opposition from the local squire (Bill Fraser), with only her attorney Mr. Jones (Artro Morris) and another unwed woman, Miss Ronsberry (Anna Massey) to help. The local community too is a bit hesitant, but among the adults there is one who has a spark of genius buried under the coal dust.

Morgan Evans (Ian Saynor) is like the other men in the village: the mines and the pub are his life, but he also has a quiet, unique writing manner and a thirst for knowledge. Miss Moffatt soon takes him under her perhaps excessively protective wing, filling his mind with vast knowledge. It soon, however, becomes too much for him, and he has a one-night stand with Bessie. 

A chance for an Oxford education comes his way, but there are complications. First, is his own self-doubt. Second, there's his and Bessie's love child, which no one knew about before she left. Despite not loving him or the baby, Bessie demands Morgan marry her, which means sacrificing the chance for an education. It is here that Miss Moffat must rally herself to impart her most important information and save many lives.

The Corn is Green was filmed on location in Wales, and the production takes full advantage of it. The telefilm is one of the most beautiful I have seen. It is a bright, sunlight production, one where you can almost feel the breeze in the air. It is one where nothing is dirty, the closest is when we see early shots of boys going down the mineshaft. Apart from that, The Corn is Green is bathed in light, where even the interior scenes have a brightness to them. Perhaps this is metaphor for the story itself, of light coming into the life of Morgan Evans. 

The lightness and brightness extends to the performances. The Corn is Green is one of Katharine Hepburn's great autumnal works, her iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove manner played if not for laughs at least with an almost addled touch. We can see Miss Moffatt's intelligence, warmth and caring, but she is also not about to suffer fools gladly. Her evolution with the Squire, from well-earned hostility to a touch of warmth works well.

Miss Moffatt is not afraid to call him a nincompoop when he gets in her way, but she also uses the Squire's sexism and arrogance against him by playing something of a "damsel in distress" when whittling him to essentially serve as Morgan's patron. By using his ignorance and ego to her own plans, Hepburn shows a knowing, wry touch. 

When working with Saynor, she also displays in turns a motherly yet at times pushy manner, yet you immediately fall in love with Miss Moffatt. Hepburn can insult people with the nicest words, such as when she hoodwinks Miss Ronsberry to be her teacher's aide. Insisting that she might still find a man to marry (and rule over her), Miss Moffatt almost cheerfully replies, "If you're a spinster well on in her 30's, he's lost his way and he isn't coming". Hepburn enlivens Miss Moffatt into being a nice, bright light, one that wants to give people a chance to succeed when society pushes them under the ground, physically and mentally as one character observes.

She is more than matched by Saynor. He seamlessly transitions from the poor Welsh miner who appears hostile to the idea of education to the intelligent, sensitive man he has grown to be. The evolution from miner to scholar works well with Saynor, and in their scenes he and Hepburn show both the joys and struggles of the mentor/student relationship. He makes you believe that he could think "teached" is correct, and she in turn shows gently that it is "taught".

Every performance is excellent and one can see that age had not withered director George Cukor's style. He was at least 79 when he directed The Corn is Green, but there is a youthful vitality and joy in the film that belies the notion that he or the story were old. There is life in the film, a bright inspirational one, and John Barry's beautiful music enhances the production.

The Corn is Green is a story filled with light and joy on the enlightenment of one man, both intellectual and moral. With standout performances by its two leads and its bright, open space, The Corn is Green is as inspirational a tale as has been seen.

10/10

Hacking Alert & Update

 

I am sad to say that I am one of millions whose laptop was hacked with ransomware. On Sunday, September 5, this image appeared. The major difference was that rather than $200, the hackers demanded $4000, but it was eventually negotiated to $500 via a Target gift card. At a certain point when I expressed reluctance to pay so much, rather than help as the person on the other end of the call (the "tech guy") said he would, he started what they said was a "self-destruct" on my laptop, complete with countdown. I then hurriedly said I would get the card but get it the next day.

I did not pay.

Instead, I contacted the FBI via their Internet Crime Complaint Center at http://www.ic3.gov and took my laptop to be inspected.

I am most stressed and upset about all this.  

As such, I will be essentially offline for a few days. I hope this situation is resolved soon and well, but for the moment, I am simply too anxious to concentrated on much.

Pray Away: A Review

 

PRAY AWAY

For a brief time in the 1980s and 90s, there was an "ex-gay" movement, where men and women were led to think that they could convert their sexual orientation through therapy of some kind. The documentary Pray Away looks at the former leaders and participants who now look back with regret and shame, though some still hold to the ideas they once professed.

Using a variety of archival footage and current interviews, Pray Away chronicles the once-held notion that through "reparative" or "conversion" therapy, a homosexual could be changed to heterosexuality. John Paulk, one of the interview subjects, soon became the face for the largest conversion therapy organizations, Exodus International. He claimed to have become straight, even marrying a woman who said she was now an ex-lesbian. Michael Bussee, cofounder of Exodus, saw a need for a support group for gay men who were also Christian, modeling his idea on other support groups within the Church.

Soon, however, Exodus became a center for the idea that homosexuals could transition to heterosexuality. Other groups either sprung up or became affiliated with them, such as Living Hope, where Julie Rodgers fell under the control of its founder, Ricky Chelette. Eventually, Exodus International delved into the political, faced scandal when Paulk was photographed at a gay bar, and eventually closed its doors with deep regret for the lives it hurt.

The closest thing to any kind of rebuttal is that of Jeffrey McCall, who is a "Trans for Christ". McCall says he was transgender until a religious conversion and now identifies as the male he was born as. He forms a Freedom March where a small but passionate group of believers spread the word that change is possible in their minds.

Pray Away is best when we hear from those who brought about this brave new world. Hearing how some were pushed into sharing deeply personal details is extremely upsetting. One senses that the various ex-gay groups such as Exodus sound almost like a cult: once you leave the group and embrace the homosexuality/bisexuality within yourself, you are cut off completely. We also get to see how some of the former leaders have changed into new lives; some like Rodgers have a same-sex wedding ceremony at a more progressive church (I think it was the National Cathedral). Others, like former Exodus spokesman Yvette Cantu Schneider accept they are bisexual, happily married to a man while not denying their same-sex attraction.

However, like other documentaries and films detailing the struggles between Christianity and Homosexuality (example, Boy Erased), Pray Away treats Christians not as people but as almost alien creatures, these bizarre figures who come from another world. From what I saw in Pray Away, those participating to change their orientation were sincerely looking to adopt their ideas of faith and lifestyle and were not motivated by malevolence. Bussee for example apparently merely wanted to form a support group for same-sex attracted Christians, not literally change their orientation. 

When did the shift from support to conversion take place? Was that the plan all along? Granted, those who still maintain that sexual conversion can take place, such as Paulk's former wife Anne who has her own group, Restored Hope, declined to be interviewed. However, it is hard to say that the motivations for the churchgoers who listen and support someone like McCall are wicked. We do not hear from them or from anyone who would call themselves a gay Christian. Again, while that is not the focus of Pray Away one senses that the filmmakers see Christians as a source of antagonism, an idea I can't share. 

From appearances, someone like McCall who detransitioned may be less brainwashed and a genuine desire to be male. It might even be due to a sincere religious experience. To the film's credit, McCall is allowed to share part of his story, though again one senses that it is a surface look.

As a side note, I find that both Christians and gays are too hung up on sex. It's a curious thing that those who look askance at people who believe homosexuals can change to heterosexuals sometimes fantasize that a straight person can enjoy a same-sex encounter or even themselves be converted from heterosexuality to bisexuality or even homosexuality. I would argue that sexuality is again very complex, not fitting easily for everyone. I would also argue that evangelical Christians are not the boogeyman some in the LGBT community continue insisting that they are. For whatever faults some evangelicals have, they have never advocated tossing gays off buildings, let alone done so. At least that I am aware of, but I digress.

Pray Away seems to be a surface look at complex issues revolving around sexuality, faith, and the conflict between the two. There are people who have reconciled their same-sex desires with their faith whether through seeing no conflict between the two or deciding for a celibate life for themselves. One watches and sees that perhaps we are merely skimming through things. If, for example, people put the blame on their same-sex attractions due to toxic parenting or abuse, it would be better for them to get treatment for the parenting/abuse versus putting their attractions squarely on that. For good or ill, Exodus fed a need among believers who found their attractions could not be reconciled with their ideas of faith. I am more curious as to the apparent need within some to "be cured", but Pray Away doesn't delve into that.

Some mention is given that perhaps groups like Exodus came about as a reaction against the growing AIDS crisis, where promiscuity was literally killing people, but whether the ex-gay movement really was a response to fear one does not know. Again, I was curious about such things, but again Pray Away didn't go into that.

We do not know what drove some of the ex-gay and ex-ex-gay movements. Perhaps some were to force changes in people or to cash in on therapy fees, but others appear to be genuine in their beliefs about changing. I think it would be too simplistic to say it was merely a desire to conform, and humans are too complicated to put it down to simple answers. Pray Away isn't going to dig into motivations, but it is good to hear from those both who found their journey harrowing and those who are barely starting their own. 

DECISION: B-

A Taste of Honey: A Review (Review #1530)

 

A TASTE OF HONEY

A Taste of Honey has it all: abusive mothers, miscegenation, illegitimate births, homosexuals. An early example of "kitchen sink drama", A Taste of Honey delves into the lives of three disparate people brought together by all these elements.

Working-class schoolgirl Jo (Rita Tushingham) yearns for a better life away from her lush, tart of a mother Helen (Dora Bryan). Bouncing from flat to flat over Helen's inability to keep up with the rent, Jo is counting the days where she will be free from school and start her own life.

Her dreams are complicated by two situations: Helen's romance with the younger Peter (Robert Stephens), who makes it clear he doesn't want Jo with them, and Billy (Paul Danquath), the black sailor with whom Jo experiences her first romance and sexual encounter.

Billy sails off and Helen chooses middle-class respectability with Peter, but neither really bother Jo. She's starting a new life as a shoe salesgirl. Here, she meets Geoffrey (Murray Melvin), whom she starts a platonic friendship due to his homosexuality. Geoffrey and Jo make an odd couple, but things take a turn when Jo finds herself knocked up. As Billy is now gone, Jo opts to have the child and repeatedly declines Geoff's help and marriage offers.

Geoff contacts Helen for help, and she seems willing but Peter again pushes to keep Jo out of their lives. Jo for her part isn't eager for Mommie Dearest to be part of her or her child's life either. As Peter has found a new bit of fluff, Helen now is more able to help Jo, though it means Geoff will have to go, which he does. At the end, Jo tells Helen the child may be black, and we end A Taste of Honey on an ambiguous note, with Helen moving in, Geoff moving out and Jo unsure of what is to become of her.

I am at a bit of a loss over why for a brief time British cinema seemed wildly obsessed with chronicling the miserable lives of the British working class. Films like A Taste of Honey and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning appear to suggest if not flat-out say that the British working poor led lives of loud desperation. They faced endless horrors and were perpetually unhappy, making horrible decisions, drowning their miseries in booze and broads. I'm genuinely surprised no one ever opted to make a spoof of these kinds of films, but I digress.

A Taste of Honey tackles serious subjects in a somewhat realistic manner. I say somewhat only in that Shelagh Delaney (adapting her play with the film's director, Tony Richardson) can't quite escape the theatrical setting. Many scenes, particularly when we're at Jo's loft, look like they could easily take place on a stage. The film does not totally avoid looking like a filmed play, which did make the overall effect a bit stagey.

However, these limits are offset by some of the performances. Tushingham, making her film debut, is quite strong if perhaps at times bordering on hysterical as Jo. When she isn't shouting at someone, her quiet moments allow the viewer to see Jo as frustrated by her surroundings, one who yearns for a better life and even has a bit of joy that is quickly taken from her. She can be tacky, like when she almost chipper-like asks Geoff to describe being with a man. She can also, however, be arrogant, hard-headed and lost. Despite what she feels about her mother, Jo is repeating the same mistakes Helen made. It is a strong debut performance.

I found Bryan to be the better performance. Her Helen was not just a selfish floozy but someone with a bit of a heart. Bryan made Helen a sad, tragic figure: one who did put herself first but who also, in her way, wanted something better for Jo. When she remembers Jo's father and how she ended up pregnant, you see Helen looking back not in anger but in regret. When she sees the ring Billy gave Jo, she tries to warn her daughter about men, but by now she has set such a poor example her words fall flat. Struggling to love Jo and be a mother, Helen could not truly put her daughter ahead of herself. It is a beautiful performance.

That leaves Melvin, and here is where A Taste of Honey could only go so far. While it isn't overtly stated Geoff is gay he does acknowledge it. However, Geoff's sexuality plays almost no role in the story. We never see him so much as look at another man, and it makes one wonder if Geoff's homosexuality is there more for the novelty of seeing a gay man on film than anything else. Granted, A Taste of Honey is Jo's story, not Geoff's, but seeing that he really has no purpose apart from being an early version of "the gay best friend", it seems almost pointless to bring up the subject.

A Taste of Honey is clearly an ironic title, as no one here will ever know the sweet life. The film, well-acted and directed, gives us a look into this world that more than a few people know personally. I did find it an interesting story, though again I wonder if the British working class ever had any happiness in their lives.

DECISION: B-

The Suicide Squad: A Review (Review #1529)

 

THE SUICIDE SQUAD

It's a curious thing that a sequel to part of a major franchise would have a title in which the word "The" distinguished it from its predecessor, but that's how The Suicide Squad is separate from 2016's Suicide Squad. I'm not a comic book fan, and I couldn't tell you anything about the many antiheroes The Suicide Squad has. I can say that the film is too gory, too long and frankly too dumb for me to have enjoyed.

Villainous government official/jailer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) sends two groups of super-criminals and oddities officially known as Task Force X but nicknamed "the Suicide Squad" to the remote island nation of Corto Maltese. Why two? Well, one was meant as a decoy for the actual group, but that group had a couple of survivors: Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), both of whom had to be rescued at different points in time.

The main group is led by Bloodsport (Idris Elba), who was essentially blackmailed into this mission so that his daughter would not serve time herself. In his motley crew is Peacemaker (John Cena), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), King Shark and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior). Peacemaker is a large man who will kill to bring about world peace, Polka-Dot Man is a genetic experiment gone wrong thanks to his mother, King Shark is a dumb talking and walking shark and Ratcatcher 2 can control rats just like her father.

Their mission: to destroy the secret lab of Jotunheim and the mysterious "Project Starfish", headed by The Thinker (Peter Capaldi). The mission does not include helping a counterrevolution after military dictators overthrew the ruling family, but if it helps their mission to have joint objectives, all the better. However, there is evil at work, as some of the Suicide Squad have a more secret mission in all this, one that conflicts with the giant alien starfish destroying Corto Maltese. Not all the squad survive, but with Waller both incapacitated and blackmailed, the survivors live to fight another day.

The Suicide Squad, written and directed by James Gunn, loves to go on many tangents that may have looked flashy but made the film much, much longer than it should have been. Both rescues of Colonel Flag and Harley Quinn seemed superfluous. The opening battle and the decision to both introduce characters and reintroduce some from Suicide Squad just to kill them off within minutes is also a poor decision. One is completely justified in asking why such characters as The Detachable Kid or T.D.K. (Nathan Fillion) or Blackguard (Pete Davison) were in The Suicide Squad if they were not going to be part of the film itself.

Even if a logical answer could be found, their deaths were particularly gruesome and excessively graphic. Perhaps some people would love to see Pete Davison's face blown off, but I am not one of them. The graphic, almost gleeful nature of The Suicide Squad's violence deeply appalls me. I figure I may be in the minority on this, but the same issue I had with Mortal Kombat is the same issue I have with The Suicide Squad: the perverse pleasure they had in showing how detailed the various killings are. Even before we get to the actual opening credits we are treated to almost sadistic levels of killing, with more to come.

I have not grown that desensitized to find enjoyment in seeing such graphic beheadings, stabbings and dismemberments. 

The Suicide Squad itself is a terrible group of people to be around, and while I figure they are the anti-Avengers I still could not find any interest in any of them to care what happened to them. It's hard to empathize with a weasel who doesn't talk.

It probably isn't fair to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and it's a credit to Margot Robbie's skills as an actress that she remains the highlight of the franchise. Her third turn as Harley Quinn (at least I think it's her third) shows she gets the character completely. Robbie can shift from almost innocent to murderous, sometimes in the same scene, with a smoothness and ease that is quite exceptional and skilled. 

As a side note, I would argue that Harley Quinn would know the David Lee Roth version of I'm Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody than she would Louis Prima's version. I don't know why this particular song had to play during Harley's rampage. I don't see how it fits, but there it is. I give credit to Kinnaman as Flag, about the only sane person in this crew, and Elba does well in the action moments, though less effective when trying to convince he has any sense of caring for the daughter he left behind. Their fight in the beginning of the film caused more laughter than concern.

Cena isn't an actor but a hulking machine, so why anyone found Peacemaker interesting enough to create a television spinoff for him is puzzling to me. I also credit Dastmalchian for working some kind of angst in his Polka-Dot Man, but nothing save the character from being silly. It's hard to sympathize with Melchior's Ratcatcher 2, for no matter how much she or The Suicide Squad tries, someone who controls rats is rather grotesque.

The Suicide Squad is poorly structured, with a lot of "three days earlier" and "eight minutes earlier" to interrupt big moments or cliffhangers such as Peacemaker's threat or the decoy invasion. Sadistically violent, unnecessarily cruel (jokes about characters deaths are tacky, tasteless and predictable), I know many enjoy such things, but I do not. Loud, long, dumb and with nothing to say, The Suicide Squad is not a film I would watch again. 

DECISION: F