Robbie rocks in ‘Birds of Prey’

BREAK UPS can be pretty brutal. Even more so when your boyfriend is Joker, your love goes “Boom!” and the protection you enjoyed as his paramour evaporates into the thick Gotham City air. So begins ‘Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’ (2020).

Starring Margot Robbie as Harley via ‘Suicide Squad’ (2016) yet totally devoid of her grinning ex, ‘Birds of Prey’ gives us kooky, ‘Deadpool’ style narration laid over a little origin story, some flashbacks and the present day.

Without Joker by her side, Harley is fair game and the truth is she’s pissed off a lot of people. The list of her aggrieved is a long one and flashes comically on screen every time Harley is dramatically tripped up by a vengeful random glaring at her from second floor windows, in alleys and from barreling cars. Though nobody wants Harley dead more than Ewan MacGregor’s Roman Sionis aka Black Mask whose grievances are assorted and include her voting for Bernie Sanders.

To get Sionis’ bounty hunters off her back, Harley agrees to help him find the Bertinelli diamond, a gem that will lead him to the crime family’s fortune and solidify his status as an untouchable Gotham City kingpin.

The problem, however, is women.

As Harley spirals after her break up – drinking, drugging, exploding things – Dinah Lance, a singer at Sionis’ club saves her from a potential Brock Turner situation. Dinah played by a bad ass Jurnee Smollet-Bell who is the do-good glue in the situation also looks out for adolescent Cassandra Kane (Ella Jay Basco) when she picks the wrong pocket. Rosie Perez is the frustrated cop hunting Harley and orphaned Helena Bertinelli (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) kills a bad guy who wants to kill them all.

A tentative alliance comes together in the third act and by then director Cathy Yan has given us locations, offbeat action sequences, colour and crazy confetti strewn scenes in which Robbie’s volatile, unpredictable, breakfast sandwich loving sometimes blind drunk anti-heroine has positively rocked.

Chopping her pig tails, lengthening her shorts and adopting a hyena all while evading baddies in flat shoes, Harley comes into her own and folks who only enjoy women superheroes and villains for their hot bodies and sexy personas will hate to see it.

Harley is goofy, she’s sloppy, she eats and lives in a crummy apartment and is as relatable as she’s ever been without the sequined shorts and total Joker devotion.

‘Birds of Prey’ is many things – a revenge tale, a post-break up flick and an origin picture – but it is also a story of sisterhood forged in a tough world where for narcissists, psychos and sundry it is always open season on women.

Harley isn’t perfect. She is a once successful doctor who fell in love with a toxic guy and lost herself in the process. What’s left of Harley is her own, as messed up as it is, and in ‘Birds of Prey’ she owns it.

As the original title says, ‘Birds of Prey’ is a fun, feminist and fantabulous emancipation that sets up some exciting possibilities for crime fighting birds of a feather and a once sidekick gone solo.

‘Birds of Prey’ (2020) is now showing at Ster-Kinekor.

-martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com