Birds Of Prey may not be the deepest movie in the DC cinematic universe, but it’s certainly one of the most fun. As a neon-splashed, ultraviolent romp through street-level Gotham City, it’s delightfully wacky and irreverent–but one moment sticks out from the rest both in tone and context. About midway through, the film’s big bad, Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) has a complete meltdown in his nightclub, prompting him to viciously attack and sexually harass one of the female patrons while Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) watches on, horrified.
There’s no punchline or wink to the audience, no slap-stick fourth-wall breaking to lighten the mood, just a power-crazed paranoid villain and his victim. In our spoiler review, we denoted the scene was one of the only gratuitous moments in an otherwise gleefully fun movie. And apparently, that was the intent. Director Cathy Yan explained the context of the scene in an interview with THR, as well as the struggle to keep the moment in the film’s final cut.