AT THE BEHEST of star and producer Margot
Robbie, the working title for (deep breath) Birds
Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of
One Harley Quinn) was ‘Fox Force Five’. For the
uninitiated, ‘Fox Force Five’ is Mia Wallace’s
(Uma Thurman) never-aired TV pilot in Pulp
Fiction concerning fi ve female secret agents eachwith a distinct identity and skill — a knife thrower,
a kung fu master, a demolition expert and a French
girl whose “speciality was sex”. It’s a particularly
apt part-time alias for Robbie’s passion project,
the fi rst big-screen outing for DC’s all-women
superhero squad. Because Birds Of Prey not only
shares the DNA of a girl gang who can kick your
sorry ass — Cathy Yan’s fi lm also boasts some of
the subversive and rockabilly spirit of QT’s ’94
classic. It doesn’t all work, but it’s a gaudy,
muddled, mostly entertaining glitter-grenade
celebration of just how women can fuck shit up.
Perhaps the fi rst rug-pull is that it isn’t
strictly a Birds Of Prey fl ick at all. It’s a moving-
on-after-a-break-up movie, a Marriage Story
with punch-ups. Quickly recapping the events
of Suicide Squad in animated form, we quickly
learn Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Joker have
broken up — she publically updates her
relationship status by driving a truck into Ace
Chemicals, the plant where she pledged herself
to the clown prince of crime — and the fi lm
frenetically establishes her trying to cope on
her own; buying a hyena she calls Bruce (after
Wayne), roller derbying, her partying antics
captured in one long shot like a coked-up 1917.
The fi lm sets up the question of who is Harley
without Mr J? The answer lies with a motley
crew of diverse women.
It’s a fun, fi dgety, breathless start, but don’t
expect it to settle any time soon. The fi lm is
narrated by Harley Quinn, so unravels with all
the logic you’d expect from her cracked psyche.
Taking a cue from her protagonist, screenwriterClockwise from main: Harley Quinn
(Margot Robbie) has a glitter grenade for you;
The Birds Of Prey assemble, rescuing Cassandra
Cain (Ella Jay Basco, second right); Nightclub boss
Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) gets a little, er, edgy.Christina Hodson (Bumblebee) begins to fracture
the narrative, drip-feeding plot points and
introducing us to the major players; Renee
Montoya (Perez), a detective belittled in her job
and hooked on the dialogue and tropes of ’80s cop
shows, is investigating a hit by crossbow-wielding
assassin Huntress (Winstead); Dinah Lance
(Smollett-Bell), a singer who goes by the monicker
Black Canary and is capable of smashing martini
glasses with her voice, powerfully warbles in the
nightclub of Gotham crime lord Roman Sionis
(McGregor); and then there is Cassandra Cain
(Basco), a streetwise pickpocket who becomes
the fulcrum for the story.
It’s not, as Harley might say, poifect. It’s
structurally chaotic. There are fl ashbacks within
fl ashbacks and comedy title-cards (“4 Minutes
Ago”) but the time-shifting dissipates momentumON SCREEN
BIRDS OF PREY (AND
THE FANTABULOUS
EMANCIPATION OF
ONE HARLEY QUINN)
DIRECTOR Cathy Yan
CAST Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead,
Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco, Rosie Perez,
Ewan McGregorPLOT Harley Quinn (Robbie) is pulled into the hunt
for street hustler Cassandra (Basco) by gangster
Roman Sionis (McGregor), along with singer Dinah
(Smollett-Bell), vigilante Huntress (Winstead) and
detective Renee Montoya (Perez).OUT NOW
★★★ CERT MA15+ / 109 MINS[FILM]