Suicide Squad: A Lesson in genius marketing, and suicidal storytelling

When you – hell, the whole world - wait for something for over a year, you expect it to be sky-blazin’ amazing. Suicide Squad was riding on a zeppelin of expectations. Shame, that it had to crash and burn the way it did. Time for an autopsy of the most highly anticipated comic book film of the decade.

Let’s start with a disclaimer - Suicide Squad is actually a decent time spent at the theatre. It has all the elements of a quintessential summer action flick – a looming apocalypse, high octane gun-toting action sequences, a hot girl, Will Smith and general Hollywood stupidity. Plus, it has cameos by Batman and the Flash to boot. But then again, this isn’t some brawny ‘Murican film we’re talking about here, because if we wanted that, Bruce Willis is still alive and kicking ass all Yippee Ki-Yay. Director and writer David Ayer has written stuff like 'Training Day' and 'Fury'. But then he even wrote the farce that was 'Sabotage' starring Schwarzenegger, so my bets weren't really on him.

Frankly, if the movie could be described in 2 words, they’d be ‘Stupid’ and ‘Superficial’.

The film starts off post the death of Superman in Dawn of Justice. There’s little that the trailers left to the imagination of the viewers with regards to the plot – Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a high-ranking U.S. government official assembles a covert team of ‘Bad Guys’ (like there’s actually a category like that) called Task Force X to execute dangerous life-threatening missions where if successful, the members would be given time off of their sentences. However, if they fail or try to escape, they’d be killed through ‘nanite explosives’ implanted in their necks (Hence the name Suicide Squad). The members are Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Digger Harkness a.k.a. Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, Enchantress, El Diablo, and Slipknot led by Colonel Rick Flag.

Apart from the Joker and Batman, this is the first time any of the characters are appearing on screen. So one would actually expect some introduction into their pasts, something more than a two-line snippet, something DC botched up grandly to save up on the length of the movie, and something which if shown a bit more in detail, could have provided much more depth to it. 

I suppose this is how the studio decided upon the intro sequence -

“This is Harley Quinn. Used to be a psychiatrist, fell in love with the Joker, went dangerously mad. Now candidate for Task Force X.”

“Okay. How’d she fall in love with that psychopath? Could you show a bit more of..”

“No we ain’t got time. We got 4 more to present here. NEXT.”

“No I know that, but still, you could offer some detail into their...”

“NEXT!!!”

Without their proper story, the star attraction of the film, i.e. the bad guys that are going to do some good, just fall limp. The film trailers were more sympathetic to their identities rather than the film itself.

Without giving any spoilers, I can say that the entire film was actually about Amanda Waller sending in this Squad to cover up for some major ‘oopsies’ she pulled along the way. ‘Oopsies’ that could well result in global destruction. And it’s actually fine. It’s a pretty spot on portrayal of the ambiguity of the intentions that people in power profess.

Speaking of power and supervillains, where were the likes of Batman and Wonder Woman all this while? It would have been pretty sensible if they’d bumped into the Squad in the midst of this entire charade. But no, not one Batarang flying anywhere close to where it was actually and reasonably expected.

That was about the story. Coming to the characters, special appreciation is due to Margot Robbie for her maniacal portrayal of Harley Quinn. Be it the crazy laughs, the unpredictable insane antics, or the PDA with the Joker, she pulls it pretty much down to a T. But even she gets suppressed in the general noise of the movie and the lack of a solid back-story justifying her character transition, and some might even agree that her character’s been over-sexualised at numerous instances.

Will Smith as Deadshot does what he knows how to do best – be Will Smith, and I can’t complain. He’s the sanest member of the squad, which is otherwise mostly a motley crew of ‘antisocial freaks’ as very aptly put by squad leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). Thankfully for him, his character has received marginally extra attention which helps to establish his humanity better, basically making him the pseudo-mascot of the squad.

Someone who really surprised me was Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang. Judging his previous flat performances that include ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’, and ‘Terminator: Genisys’, it is quite a treat watching him as the comic, edgy and loony boomerang expert Digger Harkness. He and Margot Robbie are the true embodiments of the 'crazy' element of the movie.

And now onto the Star Disappointment of Suicide Squad. I present to you the Joker.

For all those in line for a monumental Jared Leto performance, burn your tickets. Firstly, the Joker is not a lead attraction; he is merely in the film because Harley Quinn is. The promotions of the film have been riding on Mistah J and Leto’s star value, when the truth is that he’s ornamental, ordinary, artificial and not-even-galactically close to the hype. All the while I was thinking, “This is what Leto came up with after his methodical ‘deep dive’ into the role? An amateur in Improv class could have cooked that up!” Talk about doing justice to Heath Ledger.

Gotta give it to the studio though, rarely has a film received the level of marketing and promotion that Suicide Squad was subjected to. What with all the trailers, accompanied by tracks like Bohemian Rhapsody and Ballroom Blitz; a kickass soundtrack featuring original songs from names like Skrillex, Rick Ross, Imagine Dragon, Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, and Twenty One Pilots;s and a year’s worth of PR. So despite all the shred-by-shred analysis into the structure of the film, one can bet good money that Suicide Squad might even cross BvS in terms of revenue. 

VERDICT - 2/5 stars

DC is following an awkward trajectory with their films, which seek to explore substance, in a grim manner sticking true to the comics’ roots, but get tangled up in messy plot-lines, restricted time frames resulting in a pace faster than a bullet train, and a vision for the future of the DCEU which seems to neglect the needs of their current projects.

Suicide Squad is a stylish testament that there is actually something called ‘excess promotion’. Despite all that , nothing can take the spotlight away from the fact the future of the DCEU seems pretty bleak.