DO WE GET THE LAST LAUGH...?

Rating: 7/10 (3 November 2019)

Todd Phillips (Old School/The Hangover trilogy, scary to refer to them that way) foray into the comic book world comes in the form of this origin story. Following roughly along the lines of the graphic novella The Killing Joke (w/sprinkles of The Dark Knight Returns), this dark tale focuses on Arthur Fleck's (Joaquin Phoenix) struggles w/his own brand of madness, working a sorry job as a clown, caring for his home-bound mom who once worked for the Wayne estate (played by Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy who was also in DC's ill-fated Catwoman w/Halle Berry) & pining his hopes on becoming a successful comedian so much so that he'll get an opportunity to appear on his favorite late night talk show (whose host is played by Robert DeNiro) but the world he inhabits (reminiscent of the Big Apple's grungy grime of the 70's) infects his very soul where even his laughter seems to be killing him (posited as an extension of his Tourette's syndrome). When things start to spiral (a vicious attack by some youths as he tries to recover property they've stolen from him) & the eventual release comes when he stands up to 3 Wall Street types on a subway car, Fleck ditches his meds & finds new purpose to his being as he rises to meet his fate. Heavily influenced by 2 pillars of Scorsese filmdom (Taxi Driver & The King of Comedy), not to mention the stunt casting of DeNiro (star of both those masterpieces) provides a template for this narrative which feels like a strong performance shoehorned into a very familiar & predictable story-line but other than some lapses in faith in the audience attention span, the film works in spite of itself.