There's something more than an origin stoy for the Clown Prince of Crime!

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2019)

Joaquin Phoenix portrayed Freddie Quell, a traumatized, shell-shocked Navy veteran in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 film THE MASTER. As one of the greatest character-actors living today, Phoenix was so shockingly convincing in the character of Quell that not only gained his 3rd, deserving Oscar nomination but also showed his capability to nail any role of a psychologically disturbed individual or a troubled mind any day. To some extent, there's already a shadow of someone like Joker existed in Freddie Quell! Needless to say, once again he delivered a masterclass powerful performance as Arthur Fleck a.k.a Joker this year.
From the very beginning, JOKER captured a captivating atmosphere of grimy despair, while there's this slow & haunting score in the background that gradually sets the mood to take you into the heart of a damaged man's psychosis as well as to the gritty streets of Gotham, an unmistakable mirror of late 70s or early 80s New York city, filled with wealth disparity & rampant crime. Though the inspiration from the greatest films of that same era (TAXI DRIVER, THE KING OF COMEDY) also more or less visible here but what makes JOKER is a masterpiece of its own right is the point that this is a film that not only provides an origin tale for one of the most popular comicbook villains of all time, it also delivers something special at the end....where a failed comedian not only turns out as an unpredictable & merciless sociopath, called Joker but we also get to see how it all leads up to a symbol of rebellious ideology for the oppressed & the unfortunates of a divisive society; which can generate someone more menacing than Arthur Fleck's Joker in the future where a Cape Crusader may going to rise someday as his counter part!