Is “Joker” worth a Halloween date night? NO.
You might be hearing all the hype that Joaquin Phoenix is brilliant and that this film is a masterpiece. That’s true on some levels.
But this is a relentlessly downbeat story that dwells on a man’s descent into madness and evil. The film is a joyless exercise that’s occasionally brutal to boot.
It may be good, but it’s not good for you.
We’ve seen seemingly dozens of superhero movies in the past fourteen years since “Batman Begins” kicked off the blockbuster hero craze worldwide. All the flashy costumes and over the top effects extravaganzas were starting to blend together. It was starting to seem as if there would be a never-ending race to make the stories ever more convoluted. Those who weren’t obsessed fans were left to wonder if anyone would dare to strip things down and do something different with the genre.
Well, the new movie “Joker” definitely breaks the mold.
The film is directed by Todd Phillips. He started his career making frat-boy humor comedy films like “Old School” and the “Hangover” trilogy. Then, he moved into more serious fare with the true-life dark dramedy “War Dogs” in 2016.
“Joker” is the origin story of the infamous Batman super villain. But Phillips tells the story in a way that is eerily parallel to Martin Scorsese’s disturbing classic “Taxi Driver.”
Grim to the core, “Joker” leaves no one to root for
Phillips and his utterly incredible lead actor Joaquin Phoenix crafted a brooding exploration of a man who is slowly sinking into violent insanity. The result is a movie that’s an artistic achievement that critics are raving about and will likely win some Oscars. For instance, Phoenix is a lock for Best Actor.
But it’s also a grim, tragic tale that’s a total downer that no kid should be allowed to see, at ALL.
It’s hardly the non-stop violence spree that advance news reports are freaking out about. The violence it DOES feature is horrific. One scene features perhaps the most horrific one-on-one murder by brutality that I’ve ever seen.
The movie follows Phoenix as a pathetic, mentally disturbed yet initially sweet man named Arthur Fleck. Arthur lives with his elderly mother in a worn-down apartment in Gotham City. The setting looks like the 1970s-era New York, when that metropolis (Superman pun intended?) was on the edge of bankruptcy and overrun with grime and filth.
Arthur works as a clown for a Z-grade company. He spins signs for going-out-of-business sales and makes appearances at children’s hospitals.
The rest of his life consists of taking care of his mother. She’s obsessed with a billionaire named Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen). Wayne is running for Mayor (shades of President Trump).
Arthur, meanwhile, is obsessed with a Johnny Carson-esque late-night talk show host named Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro). Arthur’s dream is to perform stand up comedy on the show. He attends a taping where he calls out loudly to Murray, leading the host to bring him onstage and have fun with him on the fly.
Murray is surprisingly sweet and well-meaning, fueling Arthur’s dream further.
But Phillips shows the viewer that while Arthur thinks he’s doing great onstage, he’s actually bombing. Arthur breaks down right in public by laughing hysterically while barely getting a terrible joke out.
The footage winds up in Murray’s hands, and he shows it derisively on the talk show. Viewers beg to see more of Arthur. Their pleas lead to an invitation to appear again on the show.
But Arthur’s world is falling apart. He loses his clown gig and discovers that his mother’s stories about their lives and who his missing father is have been lifelong lies.
Arthur loses access to his medication and finds the world laughing at him. He tries to reach out to a wisecracking single mother who lives down the hall.
But is that relationship really what it seems, either? How long will it be before Arthur is pushed and prodded, without the safety net of mental health care, before he snaps?
“Joker” is ultra-violent in close-up intensity
Don’t get me wrong, “Joker” is a masterpiece on a creative level. It’s not the kind of thing that should provoke copycat killings from anyone who’s actually seen the film. People who THINK it’ll be a violence-praising joyride could be the alleged cause of concern for the FBI and police nationwide.
Phoenix is a marvel. He often makes viewers sympathetic to Arthur and the death by a thousand cuts he endures daily in his life. Frequently shirtless, he is both ripped and too skinny at once as Arthur. His spine somehow juts out from his back during one particularly disturbing scene.
This is a performance by a man who has invested in the character from inside out.
But to what end?
Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” played Joker all the way to an Oscar, but the role was so horrifying that it took him into a drug addiction that soon killed him.
At a screening of “The Dark Knight Returns” in 2012, an insane young man mowed down a theater full of people watching it with a semiautomatic weapon.
Is “Joker” a movie that should have been made at all?
If I were Warner Brothers studio, which is the home of all DC and Batman universe-related films, I would have shut down the use of Joker ever again after those double tragedies.
While the mainstream press is raving about “Joker,” fueling the public’s interest all the way to a predicted October-record-setting $92 million opening weekend, it’s hard to really enjoy a movie like this.
While the film doesn’t celebrate Arthur’s villainy, it still makes him sympathetic and overall contributes to a dispiriting ugliness that is sad to see in our current, deeply divided society.
Towards the end, his rise to notoriety inspires Antifa-style rioting in the streets of Gotham, underscoring the film’s consistently negative portrayal of Thomas Wayne for having big money while Arthur and his mom are broke.
The film carries a sometimes-subtle, sometimes-not class warfare message as well. These concerning aspects combine with the above-mentioned murder scene to make this a film that might be good, but really not good for you.