A sobering and disturbing look into mental illness and humans cruelty.

Rating: 7/10 (23 October 2019)

I went into this not expecting muck. DC Movies have been a letdown for me recently and I refused to get my hopes up despite the trailers looking intriguing. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing as the Joker. He might be one of my all time favorite versions of the guy.
The film itself is dark and sobering, dancing on the line between admonishing mankind for neglecting mental illness and celebrating the fact that you could use mental issues as a get out of jail free card. That line dancing led me to feel uncomfortable watching as well as nervous about the young males next to me missing the seriousness of it all and enjoying a little too much that macabre of the film.
While this movie was infinitely better than anything DC has put out in the last few years, it still fails to truly capitalize on Joaquin's performance. Sometimes the plot twists make sense other times they seem put in for the sake of trying to be confusing.
Ultimately while Phillips was going for a Scorcese type look and feel to Joker, it comes across as the free app version of the real thing.