C’mon People, SUICIDE SQUAD Doesn’t Completely Suck!

Now playing at a multiplex near everyone:

SUICIDE SQUAD (Dir. David Ayer, 2016)

Upon leaving the screening for this film earlier this week, I wrote on my press comment card that it was “the best DC movie yet, but that’s not saying much.”

In the days since I’ve seen many variations on that line, so much so that it appears to be the consensus – go Google “better than BATMAN V SUPERMAN” and see what I mean.

Of course there are folks like this guy whose headline declares “Suicide Squad is worse than Batman v Superman. No, we didn't think it was possible either,” but I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than that monstrosity.

It’s not a great film for sure, but there are sections of it that work – the first 20 or so minutes, the set-up so to speak, hits the mark with slick, and funny intros to the main characters.

We meet the bleached white-skinned, blue and pink tipped blonde, bright red lipsticked, crazy sexy cool Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), the smooth, wise-cracking career hitman Deadshot (Will Smith); the fire-controlling ex-mobster El Diablo (Jay Hernandez); the reptilian cannibal Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who’s the “Groot” of the group; and the Australian badass thief Boomerang (Jai Courtney), all behind bars for various crimes that we see in snazzy flashbacks.

Viola Davis plays Amanda Walker, a U.S. intelligence officer decides to assemble these dangerous supervillains (plus a late addition, Adam Beach as Slipknot) a into a black ops team for a top-secret mission that involves saving Midway City, which is basically Chicago, from the destructive forces of an ancient witch called Enchantress (Cara Delevingne).

The team is under the command of Joel Kinnaman (The Killing, House of Cards, the ROBOCOP reboot) as Col. Rick Flag, a character that dates back to the original “Suicide Squad” comics (I just read this online; I’ve never read the comic).

But I haven’t even gotten to the film’s juiciest element, Jared Leto as the Joker, whose look with his neon green hair and weird braces outraged fans when it first dropped online, but it worked well for me in the context of the movie’s aesthetics. Sadly, Leto’s Joker isn’t in much of the film, but he makes quite an impression – more so than Ben Affleck’s Batman cameo – and has electric chemistry with Robbie, whose Harley Quinn is the Joker’s girlfriend.

The movie gets messier as it goes on with the team trotting through Midway on their mission in a manner that recalls the similar scenarios of THE WARRIORS and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK but with less of their classic gusto.

I feel like I did last summer when I bitched that the Adam Sandler movie PIXELS wasn’t as terrible as critics were saying it was (mind you, I still thought it was bad) when I write that SUICIDE SQUAD doesn’t completely suck, but I’m just being honest when I say I didn’t hate it.

Unsurprisingly, the parts that I liked were the ones that were most like Marvel, especially when it came to having more humor than their previous movies (MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN V SUPERMAN were as humorless as you can get). DC has their work cut out for them if they want to compete with Marvel’s incredibly successful business model but there are moments here that show that it may be possible someday.

David Ayer, who wrote the screenplay, is definitely a better director than Zach Snyder, but SUICIDE SQUAD is such a mismatch of different styles – sometimes it feels like the NATURAL BORN KILLERS of superhero movies – that he seems like he’s in way over his head.

I’ll still say it’s worth seeing as a matinee for Robbie, who doesn’t steal the film as much as owns it right off the bat, and Smith, who gets the lion’s share of the film’s laughs. I guess my expectations were low enough that I found some enjoyment out of this very mixed bag. If you go in like that, maybe you will too.

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Liam Neeson's Latest, The Run-Of-The-Mill RUN ALL NIGHT

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

RUN ALL NIGHT (Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra, 2015)

While watching this new crime thriller, I wondered: ‘how much longer can Liam Neeson make these sort of action movies?’ The next day I had my answer as it was reported that he told an interviewer that he’d be doing them for “maybe two more years. If God spares me, and I’m healthy and stuff. But after that, I’ll stop [the action] I think.”

That sounds fair. I mean, he can crank out a couple more TAKENs in that time and still have time for a few more generic, run of the mill offerings like this one.

That’s not to say there’s no fun to be had with RUN ALL NIGHT, Neeson’s latest collaboration with Spanish director Collet-Serra, their third after UNKNOWN, and last year’s airplane thriller NON-STOP.

This time around, Neeson is a washed-up mob hit-man boozing it up in a Brooklyn club owned by his former boss (Ed Harris). Neeson has an estranged son, a limo driver played by Joel Kinnaman (The Killing, the ROBOCOP re-make), who wants nothing to do with his father. Harris has a son, Boyd Holbrook (WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, GONE GIRL), an arrogant, entitled idiot who’s impatiently waiting to take over the family business.

The fateful night of the title, Kinnaman witnesses Holbrook shooting down a Albanian heroin dealer which, after a gun-fire filled chase through the dark neighborhood, leads to Neeson shooting down Holbrook. “I just killed your boy, Shawn,” Neeson tells Harris on the phone. “I had to.”

The scenario has similarities to JOHN WICK, in that the mob boss is actually sympathetic and understands what happened, but still needs to follow through and avenge his son. The intense yet weirdly warm exchanges between Neeson and Harris, particularly in a HEAT-styled meeting in a restaurant, are the film’s highlights.

There are some other mildly enjoyable elements in Common as a smooth dapper assassin on the trail of the father/son duo, and Vincent D'Onofrio as a frumpy cop (a guy as seemingly washed up as Neeson) set on finally busting Neeson after all these years. Sure, these characters are well worn clichés but I still enjoyed the actors’ presences.

Of course, Neeson, who amusingly is able to completely kick his alcoholism in a snap, and Kinnaman work out their differences in between shoot-outs, car chases, and brutal fist fights (my friend Fonvielle remarked that Collet-Serra and Neeson’s movies always have an intense confined-space bathroom fight), and the action moves from the city out to a house out in the country for the finale as it often does in these type things.

The stylish choice to have swooping cameras take us from aerial shots quickly down to ground level for transitional purposes is really better suited for high tech thrillers like ENEMY OF THE STATE or LIMITLESS. It's a cool looking device, but it doesn't feel in sync with this material.

There’s little depth in RUN ALL NIGHT, but it has more grit and less melodrama than Neeson/Collet-Serra's previous effort NON-STOP. This entry is far from an embarrassment, and I'm certain a lot of action fans (and especially Neeson action fans) will find it quite serviceable.

So seeya next time Neeson, when his big old end to action countdown to 2017 continues.

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