Twisted and Therapeutic-The Risk That Paid Off

Rating: 10/10 (4 August 2016)

David Ayers's Suicide Squad (2016) is twisted as it is therapeutic. Colourful, comedic, dramatic, dark, violent, avant-garde and thrilling are a few choice adjectives to describe Ayers's work of art which reaches into the mind of the viewer.
The film is fun and uncanny, running under the guise of the average comic book narrative but is deceptively deep. It plays on emotions and breaks the viewer down scene by scene. A psycho-analysis, a psychosis or a connection, I don't know what it is, but Suicide Squad is therapeutic on many levels. These are bad guys, villains of the worst kind, but you can't help but sympathize with them, understand them and later to identify with them. Admit it or not, Suicide Squad reflects the outcast in all of us.
The thirteen-member ensemble is highly impact-ful and superbly cast. Jared Leto delivers a skillful performance as the joker, comparable and on par with his heavy-weight predecessors such as Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, 2008)) and Jack Nicholson (Batman, 1989). This is matched and complimented by his bravado, psychotic, stylish and scene-stealing girl-friend, Harley-Quinn, played to a tee by the talented Aussie native, Margot Robbie. Of notable mention is Jai Courtney as the dead- pan humorous and bank-robbing kleptomaniac, Captain Boomerang, whose role though restricted, is effortlessly charismatic and emotionally poignant. Also noteworthy is new comer Jay Hernandez as the reformed arsonist and human flame-thrower "El Diablo".
A comic book film with not only an emotional hook, but an emotional canvas. An impending risk that paid off greatly. A job well done Mr. Ayer.