A new hope for DC!

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2019)

"Every story needs its hero. And its villain. And its monster."
The Caped Crusader of Gotham City was never complete without his villain, the Joker. What made The Dark Knight (2008) a phenomenal success at the box office and as an all time cult classic was the characterization of the agent of chaos and seamless delivery of witful dialogues and challenges. It wasn't a surprise that the people loved the Joker more than the Batman himself in the film, for he, the Joker, didn't have any rules to play by. It was unfortunate that Heath Ledger had to leave this world, and thus creating a permanent vacuum in the Gotham City. There had been attempts by Jared Leto to fulfill the gap, but it is no match.
DC had to come up with a solo Joker movie that was due for long. Joaquin Phoenix had been creating the buzz ever since the first look poster arrived and looks-wise he was almost..almost matching the legend of Heath Ledger. With much expectations, the Joker is finally here.
Set in 1981, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a disregarded personality who works as a clown at places wherever needed and lives with his mom Penny. With a rare neurological condition, he suffers from frequent and inopportune laughter which irks people around him. The city as such is infested with crime and unemployment all over, hence there is no question of sympathy or concern for special characters such as him. Struggling to make a mark as a stand up comedian, Arthur also suffers from delusions where he is unable to distinguish reality from dreams. Things go topsy-turvy when one of his colleagues hands him over a gun to take care of miscreants who harm him. Arthur uses it against 3 rogue employees of Wayne Enterprises. While the cops are in search for Arthur, he also is in constant battle to come up as a comedian, pursue his neighborhood crush, find out the true identity of his father and take care of his mom. When he finds an answer to most of these, how he handles them and emerges as the Gotham City rebellion is the plot.
The movie has its high moments in the seamless change of expressions and body language of Joaquin. The audience will be in for a shock to see his shirtless episodes where he reminds one of Christian Bale from The Machinist (2004 The background score in most places takes the cue from The Dark Knight and builds over it to make us feel the connect. Also there are too many frames that resemble the ones of Heath Ledger, which possibly could be a deliberate attempt. ). For those expecting a Batman cameo in this movie - the answer is both YES and NO.
While this movie could easily be a grandeur in performances, one cannot get the rush that was given by the one played by Heath Ledger. Surely, there cannot be a comparison to the 2008 Joker version, for that set its standards too high that any more attempts can only keep trying to scale up half way. We can only hope the sequel to this one has much more interesting elements, for the movie ends with enough scope for that hope!