The "Better" Taxi Driver

Rating: 9/10 (4 October 2019)

As I was leaving the Theater I had a multitude of thoughts, a slew of emotions, and a grinning smile across my face. Joaquin Phoenix did a fantastic job, expressing many complex emotions through a broken character, a character you begin to feel sorry for as people make fun of him, beat him down, and disregard him as a person.
It's oddly relatable, yet terrifying as the movie goes on. Arthur Fleck carries the screen with this aura of a broken man that thinks like a child yet looks like an adult. You can't take take your eyes off the screen seeing this awkward outcast being beaten down, it's an evil pressure that builds over time.
You actually wish for him to succeed even when he resorts to violent murder upon the people who make fun of him, while throughout the film Arthur brutally kills five people, which one of them consists of a brutally terrifying stabbing upon one of his ex-coworkers, and another of him snuffing his own mother with a pillow.
Concerning the depressing nature of this movie, and the political uproar it has caused. I think, It's all needed, it belongs, and it does justice. So much so, that it doesn't feel like a DC Movie, and weirdly enough I think that helps it? I can't exactly pin-point why, but many people say this film could've been it's own thing but I just don't think it would've been as good as it was, on that note I can't explain why this combo works so well but I guess the more people who talk about it, the more praise it will get!
Concerning the soundtrack of this movie, it's MESMERIZING! It's creepy, and I love the way it builds suspense when you don't know what will happen next. Hildur Gudnadottir really did our ears justice, even the songs scattered through the movie were perfectly presented, I personally enjoyed "White Room" by Cream a lot when he was in the back of that squad car watching the riots around him, just to finally see Arthur looking happy at all of the chaos he influenced. Truly did put a smile on my face.
Concerning the look of this movie, it's beautifully sweet in a gritty dirty way. To Arthur's makeup, to the clown masks people wore. The colors really pop and I love the way they shot this movie, great camera work and not a boring part of this 2 hour film. Really well paced.
On the note of it being compared to Taxi Driver, I couldn't agree more. I had the same thought when I left the theater, and I personally think the Joker had more of an excuse to do the violent things he did, even if it was wrong. In Taxi Driver I felt like the main character just wanted to kill someone just to have his life known, or have purpose.
In Joker's defense, his life is miserable and everyone around him including the people on television make fun of him. All of his physiological problems, mixed with his uncontrollable painful sounding laugh is sad. He decides to kill himself on Live Television as his finale, to end his miserable purposeless existence in a cruel hating world... And finally when he thinks he'll get a break, the plan changes as his final joke was messed up and ridiculed to be not funny.
Even though he was a sad clown, he truly made me laugh when he was finished, That's Life.