The Joker Movie/s

Monday is about movies. And sometimes TV. Today I look back at the Joker film from 2019 and its upcoming (2024) sequel.

Over the last couple of weeks, my Instagram feed has been pumping out clips of The Joker 2, Lady Gaga has been cast as Harley Quinn. The film is due next year.

I reckon Lady Gaga is a pretty good actor - and a decent choice for the role. But I don’t know if we need a sequel to this particular film. And I don’t mean this in some pearl-clutching, won’t someone think of the children kind of way. Or maybe I do?

I have only watched the Joker film one time - but I’ve thought about it a bit. I felt like, on some level, it was irresponsible film making; a case of the movie sneaking across to the wrong audience or something. It started brilliantly, I was along for the ride - I thought. And then it turned a corner, revelling in a kind of manufactured madness that seemed to exist for the Trumpers so sure they are actually smart.

And yet, in recent months, I’ve been thinking about how maybe I need to rewatch it…

There’s very little to unpack about Joker – unless you’re fascinated by the idea that a potentially compelling mental-health/system’s broken/America’s burning riff  had to be hidden inside a comic book anti-hero/super-villain origin story. Anyone thinking that it’s a piece of Trojan Horse brilliance is possibly blown away, if you’ll pardon the pun, that Joe Rogan can host such long talks about weed…while…on weed!

Actually, Joker the movie, felt a bit like The Joe Rogan Podcast. It promised a lot and occasionally delivered. Like the Rogan podcast it’s one of the dumbest versions of clever.

As Arthur Fleck, and, eventually, Joker, Joaquin Phoenix chewed up scenery and spat out greasepaint. He’s a clown that suffers from delusions and has a hacking-cough of a laugh, handing out cards to explain that it’s a condition, he can’t control it.

Director Todd Phillips could barely control this plot. So pleased with himself, so sure he’s saying something – and in fact for the first 45-60 minutes of running time he wasn’t far off approximating a type of brilliance. The look and feel and grit and dark soul of the movie seemed wonderful.

Until it farcically tripped over its own big clown shoes by stitching up the Batman/Joker connection and having Fleck trouble a young Bruce Wayne and chase after his dad, Thomas. The timeline was a blur, the continuity of it all is the biggest joke – as the gritty feel of a 70s Scorsese film moves into the 1980s, or is it the 1950s, or what the fuck is happening? Young master Wayne is what now? A baby in the 1980s…?

Anyway, Fleck wants to make it as a comic and between giving baths to his demented mother and fantasising over dating one of the neighbours in his building (Zazie Beetz) he watches clips of Murray Franklin, a Johnny Cason-styled talk show host, played by a bored Robert De Niro who seemed to think he was supposed to channel Tony Bennet for some unexplained reason.

Of course De Niro was there so that people can draw a long bow to Phillips referencing Taxi Driver, when in actual fact the movie that you’re better off seeing, or re-watching, is The King of Comedy where De Niro was in the “Joker” role and Jerry Lewis effectively lampooned himself.

Anyway.

There is so much beautiful, brilliant stuff in the first third/half of this movie that it’s only when you remember that the man who made Hated: GG Allin & The Murder Junkies also let The Hangover run long past its used-by date and into an absurd and embarrassing, convoluted trilogy, that you can start to see how a potential vision for something deep could be corrupted, tangled and then piss all over itself.

Arthur gets beaten up by street kids and subway jerks and then he snaps. And when he snaps it’s cold-blooded, dark as all fuck and precision profound.

But we have to circle back to this being a part of the wider Batman story. Right?

Why?

Phillips had two stories to tell here. One he wants to, and one he has to. And for any commentary around the dark capitalism of America and the eating out of its soul the Joker’s director must stand, take a bow, then slice his own neck with a pair of scissors. Because he knew, deep down, that only reason he got to make this film, and have it talked about, and attended in such huge numbers, was by selling the ruse of creating a grimly plotted action-hero movie with no real action; instead with black night of the soul (or soulless) intensity. But fuck that noise, because the real story is about a lunatic – a lunatic that doesn’t need to hide behind a purple vest and green hair dye.

You want a deep story about America’s brutal deception – watch 99 Homes. Hell, watch Rambo – Last Blood ffs.

Because, just over half-way through Joker the film turns – cosmically, but not really comically – into a stupid, dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammy-acting-gestures mess.

Yes, yes, Joaquin danced and minced and mugged beautifully. And he was compelling to watch.

But the heart of this film was as cynical as casting Marc Maron in a bit-part because he’d sounded off about action-film blockbusters and/or has a ready-made podcast audience available and willing for free-ad plugs.

The heart of this film is lost.

And anyone telling you that it’s profound or disturbingly-clever or in need of deep analysis and repeat-watches is simply the kind of person that wants to seem smart without really trying.

Joker is a movie that, at first, seemed sharp. And then decided to stop trying.

Arthur Fleck’s final monologue is embarrassing. It’s basically the “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids” speech from Scooby Doo. And then he still tries to get away with it.

The plot was long gone by this point. Lost along with De Niro’s enthusiasm.

Joker, then was a frustrating failure of a film.  There was a meme suggesting that it is Passion of the Christ for Juggalos. Beautiful. Nearly perfect. Funny to laugh at before seeing the film. But after seeing it I feel like more real effort and thought and heart went into that tweet-worthy rip than into most of the movie’s 122-minute running time.

And, to think that the man that made the movie did such a hit-job on his own sequel/s to The Hangover tells me that Joker 2 stands no real chance.

Or does it?

At this stage, I have no interest in seeing it. But I’m somehow wondering if I was too harsh about that first film and whether I should see it again…or should I just leave it where it is.

Did you like the Joker film? Did you hate it? Do you have thoughts on the sequel coming?