The Suicide Squad

And BET In Prisons, PLUS Kamala Harris The Prosecutor

It’s very kind of Warner Bros. to try a do-over of “Suicide Squad” with practically the exact same title. The 2016 incarnation was probably one of the most-played movies on basic cable while I was in prison. It seemed like TNT had to roll that one out every weekend, twice on Saturday, maybe twice on Sunday, and what the hell, throw it on again on Monday. I’ve probably memorized the whole thing. It’s an unfortunate affliction.

This one is basically a sequel, though it feels like more of a make-up exam. It begins with an actual suicide mission, where a group of DC Comics D-Listers march into certain death. It’s a diversion for the actual Task Force X, another motley crew of malcontents who are destined to bounce against each other in the way characters do when they are selected beforehand by an executive who had a list of who was or was not off-limits. In other words, not totally organically!

It’s hard to ignore the obvious – there is Bloodsport (Idris Elba), who is not Deadshot from the first film. He is just an expert marksman who is typically a villain but has a difficult relationship with his daughter who he loves so much. But he’s not Deadshot. He’s also not Peacemaker (John Cena), another expert marksman who specializes in heavy artillery but is also otherwise human and who crosses firearms with Bloodsport and another trigger-happy character, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) returning from the first movie.

Joss Whedon earned a lot of well-deserved flak over the last few years, but his handling of the first “Avengers” is the only superhero collaboration movie that equally gives everyone something to do. Every superhero group movie since then, including this one, has had a problem where inevitably one or two characters are inexplicably sidelined because their placement in the narrative was dictated by the character and/or actor’s availability, as opposed to what serves the story. Which is how you have something like the finale of the theatrical “Justice League”, where Aquaman is nonsensically bouncing around in a desert. Something also somehow directed by Joss Whedon.

This is from James Gunn, who is now running all DC operations. It’s a little odd seeing the guy in charge of iconic characters stretching back nearly 100 years. Here, he’s the mastermind behind a bunch of violence-prone goofballs, serving as a gang dedicated to dismantling a third world country from the inside, unaware they’re acting on behalf of a corrupt American government. A cynic could say that, in search of bigger villains than the goons that form the Suicide Squad, Gunn is firing a cheap shot by picking the American government. Except that, well, is there a lot of creative license being taken here? Are you demonizing the American government (and the public complicity of such), or are you recognizing the curdled influence of a country that has more than once created upheaval in other countries? Is this political commentary, or do I just have eyes?

There are more than a few imaginative moments here. We spend the most time with Bloodsport since he’s played by Elba. But we also really get into the heads of the dissociative Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and the psychologically scarred Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), the latter of which somehow channels his psychological baggage with his own mother into a big special effects finale. It’s heavier and more pleasurable stuff that this genre usually affords. I haven’t even mentioned Sylvester Stallone as the pleasantly oblivious King Shark, a carnivorous monster (and, of course, a literal shark) who just wants friends. Stallone’s done a lot of crap since his Oscar nomination in “Creed” (which, yes, I saw in prison), and maybe this is the best he’s been since then.

But yes, I mentioned that finale. It’s probably familiar to all of us – a big special effects smackdown against a giant computer generated monster. A little obvious, and a big spectacle somewhat divorced from that commentary and those characterizations. But it also involves a giant, gelatinous squid beast. Gunn seems like he was given free reign, which means the film’s final sequences are far too weird for the casual fans who vibed with the trailer-but-a-full-movie vibe of the last “Suicide Squad”. And yet, my eyes glazed over. Maybe I’m done with these movies. Maybe it’s the idea that, even in a movie with a significant body count, it’s hard to gather what the stakes might be. This is one of the best efforts from this genre. Maybe that’s not enough anymore.

It’s too bad: I think there’s something to the idea that the rest of us in prison cottoned to the idea of a suicide squad. Guys in prison who were given a chance at lesser sentences in order to save the world? Sure. I will say that, while that earlier film was incoherent garbage, David Ayer showed a little bit more interest in the idea of incarceration than Gunn. A laugh line that hits hard is when the characters in the first film are asked what sort of reward they’d prefer for their heroic actions. Killer Croc’s request (which is honored at film’s end) is to have BET in his cell.

A lot of people don’t know this, but Black Entertainment Television has been banned in several prisons and jails across the country. The argument was that BET showcased a considerable amount of violent and sexual content during the day, an opinion rooted in when the network revolved heavily around hip hop videos. What’s interesting is how the network has been banned in several institutions until very recently, even though in the last decade plus, the channel specialized in a more diverse and socially conscious presentation of Black lives (with, it must be said, a heavy emphasis on the melodramatic work of Tyler Perry). The idea such programming lends itself towards violent behavior is unlikely at best, and at worst… well, do I need to say it? What do you think? This is the B.O.P., an establishment that still serves inmates fried chicken and collard greens on the national menu when Martin Luther King Jr. Day rolls around.

A recent update…

So I’ve been hearing from hundreds and hundreds of readers to weigh in on the expected selection of Kamala Harris to be the Democratic candidate for President. Obviously, I support Harris, as I would support anyone over Donald Trump. I endured too much time in prison being surrounded by Donald Trump types, toxic negative personalities too insecure to admit they know nothing. Plus, I tend to think politics are where you see that traditional credo that women have to be twice as capable as men to earn any respect. When Trump and Joe Biden started bragging about their golf games in the last debate, maybe you felt the same way.

I have no pause regarding support of Harris over Trump. I have no pause regarding a potted plant over Trump. If you pointed towards the corner of the room and told me an invisible man stood there and I could not see that invisible man and if his name materialized on a ballot, I would select this possibly non-existent person over Trump, with full confidence. I have less faith in Harris as a person, independent of an election, because of her past as a prosecutor.

I like what Harris has to say as a politician regarding criminal justice. She has proposed a plan to allow review for early release among federal inmates with long sentences. “Good behavior” hasn’t been a cause for release since the 90’s, where it was ruled that inmates were required to serve at least 85% of their sentence with no exceptions. She’s against solitary confinement and the death penalty, and has advocated for greater education opportunities for the incarcerated. She’s also rallied support against mandatory minimums, which is a curious inversion of her previous profession.

Mandatory minimums are a massive advantage for prosecutors within the justice system. A lawyer arguing their case in court is still arguing her case against a judge who may feel differently. But where a judge normally would evaluate all elements of a case, a mandatory minimum takes that power from a judge. 98% of federal cases result in a plea agreement, 95% for state cases according to the Bar Association, and in many of those cases, there’s a mandatory minimum baked into these pleas. Several plea deals are resolved at the mandatory minimum side, an idea proposed by a prosecutor who is pretending to show mercy to the accused. When the judge rules on these agreements, he’s deciding between the mandatory minimum and, in many times, a suggestion from the prosecution only slightly over the mandatory minimum.

An example of how this works: if you are charged with Manufacturing, Distributing, or Possession With Intent To Distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, and the drugs did not lead to a death or a “serious bodily injury” (First Offense), the mandatory minimum would be 120 months. If you had no other charges, the prosecution would propose this figure (possibly while dropping another lesser charge) in a plea arrangement, while turning around and asking the judge to favor an alternate, slightly longer sentence, maybe 130-135 months. Now the judge is essentially forced into laying down a sentence within that fifteen month gap, no more, no less. He will not venture below the 120 month guideline, because prosecutors like Harris will then claim the judge violated the terms of the plea and retry the case. And next time, that specific plea may no longer be on the table.

At a point like that, why even have a judge, why even have a courtroom? It’s a move made to expedite cases, at the misfortune of the accused. And with high percentages like that, there are a number of young men and women being hustled by prosecutors into signing a plea agreement that simply keeps the courts chugging along, relieving judges of their duties. All prosecutors make feasts of this, and Harris was certainly the type of prosecutor who contributed to that considerably high number of pleas, many of which signed by young men of color under duress. For any prosecutor who reached Harris’ level, it’s a shameful legacy.

Before you consider I am writing about a very good reason to not elect Kamala Harris, I remind you that her opponent, Donald Trump, wants to give the death penalty to all drug dealers. And he is a rapist and tax cheat who has repeatedly escaped credible criminal prosecution himself. Stop me when I say something controversial.