Arthur Fleck, King of the Rats

Rating: 6/10 (4 October 2019)

The director tries his hand at a more serious movie than we're used to seeing him make and admittedly that was my main deterrent in believing this film would be anything more than what it actually could be. We can compare and say it's inspired by better films like Taxi Driver all day long but it doesn't change the fact that the movie has the huge safety net of being about one of the most popular fictional characters in modern times otherwise no one would care about a movie about Arthur Fleck. You could argue that that was the directors' intention all along, shining a light on societies' apathy towards mental health but perhaps it would be reading too much into it. Todd Phillips attempts a character study and made the right call in casting a great actor to deliver a great performance. This movie tells the story of what would happen to someone who doesn't understand why the world is such a rude, awful, savage place that you can't even make people smile without getting a beating but, instead of letting people get away with their behavior, he finds you can carry out your own form of justice. Overall it was a fun 2 hours but I couldn't help but feel the need to leave the theater as quickly as possible for whatever reason. 3*