A mildly entertaining movie that fails as a character study and social commentary

Rating: 6/10 (21 October 2019)

Right off the bat, Joaquin Phoenix was quite good in this movie. Other aspects like the cinematography and production design were also very well done. Because of those aspects, I'm giving it 5 stars and not fewer. Sadly, the script just did not live up to the standards the rest of the movie set. My issues are that the screenplay lacks consistency in its depiction of reality, shoehorns in a Thomas Wayne subplot that's included just to make it clear this is a Batman (adjacent) movie, distracts from its own story with on-the-nose references to better films, and worst of all, fails to live up to its aspirations of having a point. The Gotham city that is depicted is wildly uneven throughout this movie, which is a shame because the recreation of grungy 80s New York was very impressive. At times we are meant to believe that this movie could take place in our world, with our grounded sense of reality. At other times it feels like it belongs to Zach Snyder's vision of the DC universe. This mostly comes across due to the characters (or caricatures) that Arthur interacts with. Essentially every single supporting player in this film is completely devoid of any humanity such as motivation or logic, and simply exists as a plot device to hammer home the point that people treat Arthur badly. From the hooligans that rob him (for a sign??) to the cartoonishly villainous Thomas Wayne, Arthur is constantly beaten down by characters who feel like they came straight off a comic book page, into a movie that aims to be as grounded and realistic as it can be. Speaking of Thomas Wayne, the subplot that involves him in Arthur's story is essentially only included to let audiences know that Batman exists in this universe. Yippie. Other than that, it does nothing to further develop Arthur's character (someone should really teach Todd Phillips what character study means). Then there's the Scorsese of it all. Major plot elements, characterizations, and visuals from this movie all significantly borrow from early films by Scorsese like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy (two exceptionally better movies). It got to the point while watching this movie that these on-the-nose "homages" pulled me out of the viewing experience and made me think about how much more I'd rather be watching a Scorsese film than this one. Finally, and most egregious of all, this story completely fails to connect its characters and plot to a larger theme or message. It pays lip-service to several possible messages, all of them remain completely unconnected however, leaving an incoherent mess as the only take away. Although this isn't necessarily a criticism of the movie, it is quite aggravating that any reasonable gripe you may have can be defended by some dude-bro by the fact that this film has an unreliable narrator, thus rendering anything that seems broadly drawn or confusing a result of being told an exaggerated story. A better film would have used this to its advantage by immersing the audience more fully into Arthur's subjective mindset, however, the filmmaking keeps the audience squarely in the position of objectively viewing this reality. I'll admit I was never bored while watching the movie, so by that metric I think it's fair to say it's entertaining. However, the more I think about it, the less I like it, which is a massive failing for a movie that strives to be pondered and debated. My guess is that the people rating it 9s and 10s were probably going to give it that high of marks regardless of what happened on screen so take their word with a grain of salt.