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

The ever-popular Harley Quinn gets her chance to lead her first feature film with the Suicide Squad spin-off  Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). The film ends up being an R-rated look at the seedy side of the DCEU.

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) has broken up with the Joker and she announces this news by blowing up a chemical plant. By doing this Harley puts a target on her head because everyone who holds a grudge against her knows she no longer has the Joker’s protection. One of these people is the sadistic gangster Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), leading Harley to enter into a web of schemes involving a diamond, protecting a teenage girl, and every rogue in Gotham going after Harley and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco).

The character of Harley Quinn immediately become popular after her first appearance in Batman: The Animated Series. She has become a character in the comics and been even presence in the franchise ever since. Even in the maligned Suicide Squad Harley Quinn became a pop-culture phenomenon: 2016 saw lots of women dressing up as the character. Considering the DCEU have an Oscar calibre actress in the role it made sense for Warner Brothers to make a solo “Harley Quinn” movie.

Since Justice League flopped Warner Brothers have reconfigured their DC adaptations. Instead of being a shared universe many of the films have been made as standalone adventures and in the case of Joker, not even a part of the DCEU. It also meant that directors had more creative freedom and DC films since 2017 have varied wildly. Birds of Prey was essentially a mash-up of gangster caper and Deadpool.

Warner Brothers clearly wanted Birds of Prey to be their Deadpool. It was an R-rated action-comedy that had lots of swearing, some crude humour and violence, and a charismatic lead who broke the fourth wall. It’s amazing how Harley Quinn originated in a children’s cartoon and now pitched as an adult character.

Whilst Birds of Prey has some similarities to Deadpool, its main influence were the gangster films of Quentin Tarantino and his various copy cats. Like those films Birds of Prey, the characters have a central goal that they are all converging on. In Birds of Prey‘s it’s Cassandra Cain who has a diamond. Like a Tarantino film, there are tropes like shifting timelines and voiceover. This film’s focus was on the criminal underbelly of Gotham and the colourful characters that inhabit it.

Sionis puts a bounty on Cassandra after sending Harley to retrieve the girl. It gives Birds of Prey the air of the Joe Carnahan film Smokin’ Aces where a load of assassins fight against each other to claim a million-dollar bounty. It also gives the film that has a narrative change, one from Harley capturing a child and saving her own skin, to one where she has to protect the child.

Due to the gangster setting Birds of Prey did not look or feel like a comic book film. It is a wacky world but the characters would fit more in a Guy Ritchie movie. The only time the film ventures into more superhero territory was when Black Canary’s (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) used her powers, which she barely uses. Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who used a crossbow and had a tragic backstory seemed like she came out the Kill Bill universe.

The effect of Birds of Prey being a gangster film was it was a smaller scale film, like Joker was. If the ‘heroes’ fail all that happens is one man dominates the Gotham criminal world and becomes filthy rich. It’s not exactly world-changing like in other DCEU films.

In this film, Harley Quinn was a chaotic character and chaotic is a great way to describe the film as a whole. The plotting and storyline were erratic because it was all over the place.

Harley Quinn has been a character who has suffered in the hands of the Joker. In the episode of Batman: The Animated Series “Mad Love” showed how the Joker manipulated Harleen Quinzel into a relationship and he became physically abusive. In the comics, the Joker psychologically tortured Harley and the DC Universe cartoon Harley Quinn shows that even when she leaves the Joker he was still a toxic influence. The Harley Quinn in this film has a journey where she can show work without the Joker.

Birds of Prey has underperformed at the box-office and there are certain sectors will use the term ‘go woke, go broke’ to describe what happened. The film really suffered from bad marketing and it was a marmite film: a lot of people either love it or hate it. I am more positive towards the film but didn’t love it like some other people.

There was some gender politics in the film. Besides Harley’s journey, other characters have suffered at the hands of men. Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) was an excellent cop but didn’t have the respect of her colleagues and male officers took the credit for her work. Whilst Black Canary was a strong character who did not like to see other women suffer, even if she doesn’t like them. Black Canary action credentials were shown when she saved a drunken Harley from a couple of thugs  One of the most uncomfortable scenes in the film was when Sionis forces a woman to dance and strip after he thinks she was mocking him.

Whilst Birds of Prey was a mostly light-hearted Sionis was shown to be a sadistic villain. He was a violent gangster who cuts off faces – there was a dark sequence where Sionis intimidates a whole family. His second-in-command, Zsasz (Chris Messina) was someone who celebrated a kill by scaring himself. And the pair were clearly implied to be lovers.

Style-wise Birds of Prey was DC’s most distinctive film so far, standing out because of its erratic style and will please fans of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.