Review: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)

Rated R for strong violence and language throughout, and some sexual and drug material

Score: 4 out of 5

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) exists entirely due to 2016's Suicide Squad. This makes more sense than you might think, given the quality of Suicide Squad. Released in the midst of the DC Extended Universe's downward spiral, it was the one film in that franchise that I missed, but by all accounts, I wasn't missing much, the film having had a very troubled production that only got worse after the backlash against the grimdark posturing of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice led to a hasty course-correction. That said, I can't say that I wasn't missing anything, because even the most sharply critical reviews all agreed that one of the lone bright spots in the film was Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. Her trashy, "basic bitch" take on the character quickly became as definitive in live-action as Arleen Sorkin's version from the '90s Batman: The Animated Series was in the cartoons, such that, even though few people will admit to having actually liked Suicide Squad as a whole movie, a lot of women that year did dress up as Harley Quinn for Halloween. So when it came time for the DCEU to get its much-needed course correction, it quickly became apparent that Harley would be getting her own movie. And given how Harley became an anti-role model for a generation of young women, bringing in the Birds of Prey, an all-female superhero team from the comics, and overtly marketing this as the most violent "girls' night out" ever made all the sense in the world.

And holy hell, did I have a good time. I may not have been one of the young women that the marketing was most explicitly courting, but I am a fan of violent action movies, humorous crime capers, and the over-the-top gonzo mayhem of the Grand Theft Auto games, and it's clear that that was what director Cathy Yan and writer Christina Hodson were going for here. The action, much of it bearing the influence of the John Wick films (Chad Stahelski did some second-unit work here, and it shows), was beautifully shot and often creatively staged, and the writing and performances did a great job of fleshing out the film's five not-so-super heroes, with Robbie's Harley stealing the spotlight but everyone getting a chance to shine. The villain was weaker than I might have liked despite starting strong, and the disjointed nature of the first-act storytelling was a mixed bag even if I liked the effect they were going for, but those are fairly minor blemishes on a film that I can see myself rewatching with little problem.

Like other recent DCEU films, this one is only loosely connected to the events of the films that came before it. Harley's backstory and relationship with the Joker are briefly recapped before we see that they've had a falling out, with the Clown Prince of Crime throwing her out of his house. A dejected Harley decides to make a grand "fuck you" statement to the Joker in return by blowing up the chemical plant where one Dr. Harleen Quinzel, upon first falling for the Joker, jumped into a vat of chemicals to prove her devotion to him and became his mad harlequin as a result. This lets everybody who Harley's ever pissed off know that she's no longer with "Mr. J" and protected by her relationship with him, and before long, Harley is being hounded by people trying to kill her -- not least of whom is Roman Sionis, the most powerful crime lord in Gotham City and a man with both a reputation for brutality and a very, very long list of reasons to want Harley dead. Harley saves her ass, however, by offering to help Roman kidnap Cassandra Cain, a petty crook who stole an extremely valuable diamond from him. Roman takes her up on the offer, but also puts a $500,000 bounty on Cass' head in order to make things interesting. All the while, Gotham City police detective Renee Montoya is in contact with Dinah Lance, a burlesque singer and driver for Roman who serves as a mole within his organization. Furthermore, a mysterious, crossbow-wielding assassin named Helena Bertinelli is murdering her way through the ranks of Gotham City's underworld with her own agenda, eventually crossing paths with Harley, Cass, Dinah, and Montoya.

Having missed Suicide Squad, I went into this film not knowing what to expect from Margot Robbie as Harley beyond the trailers for both that film and this one. Watching it, I can see why she has become one of the diamonds in the rough of the DCEU even at its worst, and a breakout star at its best. Her Harley is the kind of young woman that just about everybody knows, and typically doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about even if they themselves may have some of her qualities. "Basic bitch" sums it up pretty well, as does "white trash", the film emphasizing what a complete and utter sack of shit she is as she lies, robs, and cheats her way across Gotham. Her antics are played for laughs, to be sure, but it's made perfectly clear here that, if ever they wanted to make Harley a straight-up villain in the DCEU, they easily could. Robbie is an incredibly charismatic, scene-stealing presence in virtually every scene she's in, such that the amount of development given to the other characters felt like a way to stop her from just walking away with the film. Her quirks feel earned, not an attempt to just make her "cool" for the sake of it. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in the best possible way, was Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Helena, a comically self-serious assassin who really wants people to take her seriously as a badass and throws a fit when people call her "the Crossbow Killer" instead of her preferred alias, Huntress. She was equal parts Arya Stark and Batman, specifically the Will Arnett parody version from The LEGO Movie, an exceptionally talented killing machine who is nonetheless clearly emotionally stunted as a result of having been trained as an assassin since adolescence. Scratch her "tough girl" exterior, and you get a moody teenage goth chick who wants more than anything for people to take her srsly, and the film putting her next to Harley demonstrates just how much healthier she'd probably be if, ironically, she started taking more cues from the literally insane, coked-up clown; given her feats over the course of the film, it's not like she needs all the posturing.

While Robbie and Winstead got the showiest parts, the other Birds of Prey also do great work serving as the human center of the film and giving it more grounded stakes. Jurnee Smollett-Bell's Dinah, aka Black Canary, is a more traditional "gangster's moll" who gets fleshed out into a protagonist in her own right, one who has realized what a rotten person Roman is and turns to Montoya in an effort to bring him down. (Great singer, too.) Rosie Perez's detective Montoya, meanwhile, would be right at home in any cop show, a point that Harley even jokes about when noting that some of her lines sound like they were lifted directly from such. Hers turns out to be a fairly classic superhero origin story, a good cop who got sick of corruption, bureaucracy, and glass ceilings on the force and took the law into her own hands. Finally, Ella Jay Basco felt much older than she actually was (I was shocked to see that she was only thirteen) as Cass, a teenage girl who's been forced to grow up way too fast thanks to getting lost in the foster system. Instead of the loving adoptive family that Billy Batson had in Shazam!, Cass got parents who spend most of their time arguing and are barely in the movie at all. She is cute, but already well down the path of becoming a hardened criminal, or in this case getting on the wrong end of one. As for Ewan McGregor's Roman, aka Black Mask, his performance elevated a fairly underwritten villain into a compelling one who always made for an intimidating presence. He felt slimy beneath his fancy clothes, mistreating everyone around him (especially women) and flying off into fits of rage while ruling his criminal empire through fear. While his misogyny is never spelled out in explicit terms, it flows freely in an unmistakable manner.

The rest of the film's thematic messaging is handled in a similar manner: never made explicit, but always sitting as subtext. The Birds of Prey are women who have, in some way or another, been mistreated by men: Harley by the Joker, Dinah and Cass by Roman, Helena by the gangsters who killed her family, and Montoya by the male detectives who took credit for her work. Harley partakes in roller derby as a hobby, the protagonists' sisterhood eventually takes center stage once they get over their mutual distrust for one another, and while all of them (save for the young Cass) are portrayed as good-looking women, their sex appeal is secondary. It is a movie that starts from the premise that its female anti-heroes can be just as cool and badass as comparable male anti-heroes from similar crime dramas, and from there, just decides to be the best version of itself it can be. The action is spectacular as far as superhero movies go, as Cathy Yan and Chad Stahelski made for a great team behind the camera with their focus on hand-to-hand fights, long takes, and rock-solid choreography over the spectacle of its bigger-budgeted counterparts. This film wants you to know that its protagonists can kick ass and take names, and it let them walk the walk with the best of them. The film's aesthetic also manages to fuse the grit of an urban crime drama with a bright neon palette that's most evident in Harley's choice of outfits (especially the pink bra she spends most of the movie wearing), adding up to what I've seen another critic describe as a Hollywood studio take on a Troma movie: a hyper-stylized depiction of the inner city in all its trashy glory. The sets of some of the action scenes, particularly the abandoned carnival and pier where much of the third act takes place, felt like throwbacks to the Tim Burton era of Batman movies -- but whereas Burton had to keep things PG-13, Yan was free to cover those flashy sets in all the blood and guts she wanted. The result was a movie where I was just about ready to pull a PlayStation 4 controller out of my pocket, such was how evocative its world felt of the best parts of the Grand Theft Auto games. (On that note, if Rockstar Games ever decides to finally have a female protagonist in a GTA game, this would be a good place to start for inspiration.)

The film didn't really come together until the second act, unfortunately. While the first half-hour or so of the film did work in parts, overall it was told in a disjointed manner that, in my opinion, kind of caused it to drag given that we already know where the story is headed: with Harley walking into the police station with a grenade launcher searching for Cassandra Cain. Telling the story in a more traditional, chronological manner would've meant cutting some good jokes, but it would've also made those early scenes feel a lot more propulsive, rather than just circling around to where we already were in the story. Once it did get moving again, it never looked back, but until then, it felt like the film was just spinning its tires for no apparent reason, which didn't leave the best first impression. Also, while I was impressed by McGregor's performance as the villain, the actual writing for the character left much to be desired. Most of his qualities as a character came from McGregor, and while he was a menace, by the time the movie reached its climax I always thought that there was just a little something extra that could've put him over the top as a bad guy.

The Bottom Line

It's not for everyone, and its trashy neon aesthetic is likely to turn some people off, but this was still a welcome surprise in what's otherwise a pretty dry season for new wide releases. Go check it out; it deserves a bit more love than it's getting.