I know I didn’t manage to get out a movie recommendation this week, I’ve been busy. But I finally caught up on everything else and was able to watch the recently released The Suicide Squad tonight.
I’m going to try to keep this relatively spoiler free, but if you don’t care for any details, I’d say stop here and watch it if you’re into super violent super hero movies. It’s worth the time.
Alright, if you’re still with me, here are my thoughts on The Suicide Squad.
The Suicide Squad is a tale of the lumpenproletariat and revolution. The lumpenproletariat are those of the working class who are cast out by capitalist society - generally disparaged in a class based system, but they’re people too and deserve all the rights that everyone does. However, the capitalist system considers them expendable - even more so than the proletariat, the regular working class. The basic concept of the Suicide Squad is that the US government uses prisoners with special abilities for suicide missions - hence the name. This is a very accurate portrayal of the way the hyper capitalist United States feels about the lumpenproletariat - they are expendable. We see this in the real world in the prison labor system and the way the homeless are treated and the war on drugs. There are several lumpenproletariat references that can be made, but for lack of spoilers, I won’t specifically reference them here.
I’m not going to get into the plot too much here, but I was pleasantly surprised that there is an anti imperialist message throughout. For once in a blockbuster film by a major studio, the US government are not the good guys. This is a refreshing take that we do not see very often. Kudos to Warner Brothers for allowing this message to remain - it could have been stronger, but it was there and it was clear.
While The Suicide Squad isn’t on par with most of the movies I recommend here, which are specifically chosen for their leftist message, it is still a fun watch and I’m happy to recommend it.
You can watch it now in theatres (if you’re a risk taker) or on HBO Max.