Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)[a] is a 2020 American superhero film based on the DC Comics team Birds of Prey. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the eighth installment in the DC Extended Universe and a follow-up to Suicide Squad (2016). It was directed by Cathy Yan and written by Christina Hodson, and it stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong, and Ewan McGregor. The film follows Harley Quinn as she joins forces with Helena Bertinelli, Dinah Lance, and Renee Montoya to save Cassandra Cain from Gotham City crime lord Roman Sionis.
Robbie, who also served as producer, pitched the idea for Birds of Prey to Warner Bros. in 2015. The film was announced in May 2016, with Hodson being hired to write the script that November, followed by Yan signing on to direct in April 2018. The majority of the cast and crew were confirmed by December 2018. Principal photography lasted from January to April 2019 in Downtown Los Angeles, parts of the Arts District, Los Angeles, and soundstages at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Additional filming took place in September 2019.
Birds of Prey is the first DCEU film and the second DC Films production to be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. The film had its world premiere in Mexico City on January 25, 2020, and was theatrically released in the United States in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and 4DX on February 7, 2020. It grossed $201 million worldwide, making it the fifth highest-grossing film of 2020 but falling short of its widely reported break even point of $250–300 million. The film received praise from critics for its visual style, action sequences, Yan’s direction, and Robbie’s performance, but criticism towards Hodson’s screenplay.
Plot
Four years after the defeat of the Enchantress,[b] the Joker breaks up with Harley Quinn, throwing her out on the Gotham City streets. She is taken in by Doc, the owner of a Taiwanese restaurant, and recovers from her relationship by cutting her hair, adopting a spotted hyena (whom she names after Bruce Wayne), and taking up roller derby.
Harley gets drunk at a nightclub owned by Roman Sionis, a ruthless crime lord, and cripples his driver after said driver insults her. She meets burlesque singer Dinah Lance, who later rescues an intoxicated Harley from an attempted abduction. Sionis is impressed by Dinah’s skills and appoints her as his new driver. The next night, Harley blows up the Ace Chemicals plant as a way to publicly announce her and Joker’s breakup. Meanwhile, GCPD Detective Renee Montoya investigates a series of mob killings carried out by a crossbow-wielding vigilante. Finding Harley’s necklace at the scene of the Ace Chemicals explosion, Montoya notes that Harley is in danger without the Joker’s protection. She approaches Dinah about being an informant on Sionis for them, but Dinah rejects the offer.
Sionis sends Dinah and his sadistic right-hand-man Victor Zsasz to retrieve a diamond embedded with the account numbers to the fortune of the Bertinelli crime family, who were massacred years ago. Young pickpocket Cassandra “Cass” Cain steals the diamond from Zsasz and swallows it after she is arrested. Harley, fleeing from Montoya and several other people she had wronged, is captured by Sionis’s men. Zsasz informs Sionis that Cassandra has the diamond, and Dinah warns Montoya. As Sionis prepares to have Harley killed, she offers to recover the diamond for him. Sionis agrees but also places a bounty on Cassandra. Breaking into the GCPD with a variety of firework-inspired non-lethal grenade launcher rounds, Harley frees Cassandra and the pair escape.
After escaping, Harley and Cassandra bond while hiding out at the former’s apartment. Doc is approached for information by the “crossbow killer”, who is revealed to be Helena Bertinelli. Having survived her family’s massacre and becoming trained as an assassin, Helena has been targeting each of the gangsters responsible for her family’s murders, preferring the moniker of “The Huntress”. Harley’s apartment is later bombed by criminals looking for Cassandra, and Doc sorrowfully reveals that he sold Harley out. Harley calls Sionis and offers to turn Cassandra over in exchange for his protection, agreeing to meet at an abandoned amusement park. Dinah notifies Montoya of the rendezvous, but her betrayal is noticed by Zsasz, who informs Sionis. A devastated Sionis dons his ritualistic mask from which he gets his villainous nickname, “Black Mask”.
At the park, Montoya confronts Harley, but Harley knocks her out of a window. Zsasz arrives and tranquilizes Harley before holding Dinah at gunpoint, but he is killed by Helena, who reveals Zsasz was the last of her family’s killers. Montoya returns and a stand-off ensues until they realize Sionis has arrived with a small army of masked criminals, known collectively as the False Face Society. Using Harley’s old gear, the makeshift team successfully withstand and repel their attack. During the battle, Cassandra is captured by Sionis, while Dinah reveals her metahuman ability of supersonic-level screaming, defeating an additional number of mobsters aligned with Sionis. Harley gives chase on roller skates, and with assistance from Helena, the pair pursue Sionis. At a nearby pier, the final confrontation occurs. Sionis prepares to kill Cassandra, but she pulls the ring from a grenade that she slipped in his jacket after taking it from Harley’s weapons chest earlier. Harley throws Sionis off the pier just before the grenade detonates and kills him.
In the aftermath of destroying Sionis’s criminal empire, Montoya quits the GCPD. With the money within the accounts hidden inside the diamond, she joins Dinah and Helena in establishing a team of vigilantes called the Birds of Prey. Harley and Cassandra escape, selling the diamond itself to a pawnshop and starting their own contract killing business.
In a post-credits audio sequence, Harley is about to reveal a secret about Batman, but the film ends mid-sentence.
Cast
Margot Robbie as Harleen Quinzel / Harley Quinn: A former-certified psychiatrist, who became a crazed criminal and the Joker’s accomplice/girlfriend, and later a part of the Suicide Squad. She has since cut ties with the Joker after the pair broke up. Screenwriter Christina Hodson sought to reinvent Harley, wanting to expand on the character following her departure from the Joker’s company. Hodson called Harley the character she enjoyed developing most due to her unpredictable personality.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Helena Bertinelli / The Huntress: A vigilante who is the orphaned daughter of gangster Franco Bertinelli. Ella Mika portrays a young Helena, during flashback scenes.
Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Dinah Lance / Black Canary: A vigilante with the metahuman ability of hypersonic screams, which she inherited genetically from her mother. She is a singer in a club that Sionis owns. Smollett-Bell described Dinah as “disenfranchised and disconnected from the world,” and someone who “doesn’t really want to have anything to do with crime fighting or being a good-doer, which is so against her nature because we know Dinah to be all heart.” The actress added she became a fan of Black Canary by playing with the character in the video game Injustice 2, which also influenced how she physically portrayed the depiction of the hypersonic screams.
Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya: An alcoholic, cynical detective in the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD), who is building a case against Sionis.
Chris Messina as Victor Zsasz: A deranged mob killer and henchman of Sionis who carves a tally mark on his skin for each victim he claims.
Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain: A young girl who has a contract placed upon her head by Sionis after she steals a valuable diamond from him.
Ali Wong as Ellen Yee: Montoya’s ex-girlfriend and Gotham City district attorney.
Ewan McGregor as Roman Sionis / Black Mask: A brutal, self-obsessed crime lord who threatens Cassandra and Harley. McGregor described the character as “an absolute narcissist.”
Additionally, Steven Williams portrays Captain Patrick Erickson, Montoya’s superior at the GCPD; Dana Lee portrays Doc, Quinn’s friend who owns a Taiwanese restaurant; François Chau portrays Mr. Keo, a rival crime boss of Sionis; Derek Wilson portrays Tim Munroe, a GCPD detective; Matt Willig portrays Happy, previously a henchman who worked for the Joker and Stefano Galante; and whose face was tattooed by Quinn and the Joker; and Bojana Novakovic portrays Erika, a night club patron who gets harassed by Sionis. Charlene Amoia and Paul Lasa respectively portray Maria and Franco Bertinelli, the mother and father of Helena; Robert Catrini portrays Stefano Galante, the mob boss who killed the Bertinelli family.
The Joker appears in the film, through animated-special effects during a flashback sequence, as well as through the combined use of archive footage of Jared Leto from Suicide Squad and body-double Johnny Goth on set. These techniques were used because Leto was not available during filming. A still photograph of Jai Courtney as George “Digger” Harkness / Captain Boomerang also appears on a wall in the Gotham City Police Department.
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