David Ayer is an amazing writer/director who mostly dabbles in down in the dirt gritty crime dramas from Training Day to End of Watch. He also did a Great War drama period piece with Fury and a more dramatic version of Expendables with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Sabotage being one of Arnold's best performances, Ayer can take any actor and excel them as well as any story and give it weight with his dialogue. Suicide Squad was one of my favorite concepts to come out of DC comics, a bunch of hardened criminals forced to do the governments dirty work for fear of detonated death, it's basically a comic book version of Escape From New York with a bunch of multi colored super powered Snake Pliskens. The trick to adapting this isn't necessarily grounding this universe of super powered criminals but to ground the characters to their basics and delve into the cores of the super villains. They don't like each other. Some don't even like themselves and back stab to get what they need or want. Very much in the way Ayer had you follow two characters in Training Day who then turn on each other near the end of the film, that turn on the dime attitude needed to be applied for these villains to make something truly unique and unseen before in a superhero film. As for the spectacle while Ayer's directing prowess behind huge action pieces hasn't been displayed before his ability to write them has as he had written the screenplay to the original Fast and the Furious. Had this film not come out after Batman v Superman it could've been something truly special. Instead it has so much going for it in pieces clearly mastered by Ayer but tampered by too many other cooks in the kitchen. 
Following the events of Batman v Superman, Amanda Waller wishes to put together a task force of super villains she has collected to maintain order in a world post the death of Superman where other meta humans roam free. Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Enchantress, Captain Boomerang are all collected in different ways. Enchantress is a an ancient god like being who inhabits the body of her discoverer Dr. June Moon. Being the Meta Human with the most power, Waller carefully manipulates her the most, having Dr. Moon fall madly in love with her 2nd in command Rick Flagg to control the human side and finding the heart of the Enchantress to hold sway over the creature part threatening to destroy the heart which would in turn harm her. Enchantress escapes and unleashes the powers of her godlike brother upon an unsuspecting city and the Suicide Squad is forced into the field to defeat her or Amanda Waller will pull the trigger on the bombs embedded in their necks, however the Squad has no idea what they're facing nor do they know it was accidentally unleashed by Waller herself. 
There are some really great character introductions in this film that show off how well they are starting to handle the crossing of the DC cinematic universe characters as members of the Justice League before it is formed capture most of the Squad which Waller then sneaks her way in to incarcerating them. Harley Quinn and Deadshot especially take shape in their stories as Will Smith is a huge Warner Brothers actor and Harley Quinn is a huge crowd pleaser. They each get a pretty extended background through quick cut very A.D.D scenes which matches perfectly with Quinn's insanity, but Deadshot definitely gets more of an emotional anchor with the story of his daughter making him the heart of the movie and the scene in which he is captured being the true anti hero pull on your heart strings moment. Diablo is pretty cool and gets a very quick intro with a small bit of meat to it that is set up to obviously get a pay off for later in the film. Captain Boomerang's intro is pretty much just to have a Justice League cameo and Killer Croc just kind of appears eating people and looking badass. Might I add he is a practical FX creature created by KNB FX group overseen by Walking Dead's Greg Nicotero himself! 
The first half of the movie is really choppy introductions with a lot of throwaway dialogue to set up the characters, which I didn't mind as much but it didn't necessarily seem a lot like Ayer's usual style. Deep character development was tossed aside for some of the members in the beginning to expedite the narrative forward which I had hoped would come around later to giving us more insight in the characters as the film progressed. When the Squad is put into action for the first time it's really badass showing off each ones specialty in combat and the brutality of some of them as they are straight up murdering these creatures conjured up by Enchantress, which are also practical FX creatures! This first half of the movie had me really happy as certain characters had been really nicely set up, there was tons of cool practical FX as opposed to the CGI wall of Batman v Superman and the action sequences were really solid. I cared about Deadshot, Harley was spot on with her accent and demeanor even though I still think her costume and tattoos are dumb and Diablo was being set up really nicely as a solid character to really invest in. Then came the Joker rescue and Bar Scene which both stopped the movie. 
I straight up hated Jared Leto. This is the worst misrepresentation of the character ever committed to screen who had more in tune with a homicidal maniac punk rocker who wants to be gangster than the beloved character who would scoff at such uninspired villainy and obvious attention seeking tattoos. That's the Batman fan in me complaining. The film goer in me was just completely annoyed by his stupidity. His tattoos telling you how messed up he is are stupid, especially the little smile on his hand which he covers over people's faces to half lamely wax poetry with. Leto's voice sounds like he is trying to copy Ledger so hard and it fails and just becomes annoying as he lingers on lines of dialogue drawing words out trying so hard to be crazy as opposed to actually being crazy. Leto just tries way too hard to be the Joker doing weird stupid things and acting like an idiot I could not stand him at all in the movie. The sad part is I feel like this representation of Joker and Harley is completely Ayer's as its very gangster like in his other films but with a combo of Sid and Nancy Sex Pistols. In the beginning choppy editing sufficiently introduces how Harley came to be and then we didn't need Joker after that. He pops in to save her during the Suicide Squad's first mission and fails. This interruption changes nothing in the narrative. It could've done so much especially in the end when Harley has to choose the Joker over the team she barely knows but doesn't. Waller brushes off the Joker interruption like she tripped over a stone. It is just pointless action that does nothing but stop the film. 
Then the bar scene. Once the Joker interruption ends the squad finds out Waller is the one who accidentally unleashed Enchantress who was under Rick Flagg's supervision and they get pissed thinking they're all going to die anyway and go to an abandoned bar. Oh yeah and Katana is introduced working with Rick Flagg, wants to kill the Squad and then all of a sudden joins them in the bar as best friends, leaving Flagg. This is where it just gets stupid. Diablo blurts out his origin pretty much to give him a reason to have the big action scene later in the film and they all have a Breakfast club moment swapping sad stories. They're all best friends loving on each other for no reason as none of them other than Harley and Deadshot have really had any onscreen chemistry. Then Flagg smashes the controls for their neck bombs because he feels sorry for unleashing Enchantress. Boomerang walks right out the door leaving. Deadshot makes a lame speech about being heroes which none of them are and they decide to risk their lives to save the world. At this point the heroes thing works for Deadshot who wants to be a hero in the eyes of his daughter and for Diablo who wants redemption but that's pretty much it. Harley kind of has a reason because maybe she's into Deadshot. 
They have a slow motion, "I'm a badass saving the world walk" and Killer Croc decides to help them and Captain Boomerang who literally walked out the door to get the hell out of town a minute ago reappears for no reason to help them. Katana? You don't have any idea what or who she cares about. One minute she wants to murder Harley and then is crying over her sword husband. That's the extent of her character. This is the point where I think the "reshoots" kicked in and I can't believe they have anything to do with David Ayer. The tone of the movie shifts, the dialogue becomes moronic as Will Smith constantly reminds you they are bad guys and the characters all give TV movie of the week bad one liners. I had heard that the company who cut the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer and Ballroom Blitz trailer actually were hired in to do the reshoots! Those trailers had no dialogue and were cut to music, while they were awesome they're only trailers! Ayer set up this amazing build of these characters in the beginning and then the film just feels like it was taken away from him and the rest of the movie just hurts. The ending action piece is cool and Diablo becomes a badass Aztec fire God for no reason but some of the dialogue is so painful to hear it makes the action just boring and dumb. 
This really should have been an awesome David Ayer ensemble piece and the worst part is they tried so hard to make it Guardians of the Galaxy, they even had spirit in the sky playing while the helicopter flew away just like when it played in Guardians and the Milano flew away! The biggest problem with trying to make Suicide Squad like Guardians is the Guardians at the end of the day are heroes whereas Suicide Squad is straight up villains! There is no balance of all these characters unless you're Will Smith's Deadshot or Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn with Jay Hernandez's Diablo getting nice moments to show off his acting chops to take over the final battle. Deadshot somehow becomes their leader and I'm not really sure why.
These are hardened criminals supposedly. Killer Croc looks cool but he becomes a Louisiana racial stereotype with the stupidest lines that you can barely understand. Captain Boomerang is the slimiest, drunkest most wretched villain in the film and he could've been awesome, but he's also just kind of there to drink random beers. Katana pops up has a back story with some throw away lines and then all of a sudden is crying in a corner over her husband sword which they tell you captures the souls of its victims but you never see happen or really expanded upon. She might be the weakest character in the film besides the Joker. All of a sudden for no reason whatsoever all these people are best friends and are ready to save the world. I'm not joking this is the level of character development these characters get. 
The film is beautifully shot with a lot of dark colors that make the grit of David Ayer's usual aesthetics pop off the screen. He uses one very famous art piece, Alex Ross's famous cover of the Joker and Harley in which we see Margot Robbie in the original Harley Quinn costume and then she tosses it away basically stomping on the hearts of those who loved her first appearance in Batman the animated series. There is so much of Ayer in this film but so many other people took it over and tried to make it something it's not, I can't believe Ayer would consciously use those old school songs as I've never heard him use classic rock like that before, it's fun but pretty obvious rip off of Guardians brought to us by the people who cut the trailer. The trailers themselves have so many moments that you don't see in the movie, making it so obvious too much had been tampered with! I wish so much this film wasn't butchered by people who didn't know how to make anything other than a very basic film. Ayer is a genius and Warner Brothers squandered that for fear of repeating Snyder's failure. This should have been the movie that put DC's cinematic universe on the map but the second half just makes it another soulless tent pole summer movie and it makes me really sad because I loved the creative team behind the movie and the source material. I don't blame David Ayer because his genius permeates parts of the film but Warners like usual butchers its own baby. 3 out of five Suicide Squad members being interesting with the hope of more Diablo in the future.
