Exactly.
And that Lecter example was thrown around in this thread a thousand times over the last few months in defense of reports that Leto has limited screen time in this movie. Its all ok, he doesn't need much screen time to be awesome. Look at Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs is all we kept hearing here.
If your character is quality, you can make an awesome impression in ten minutes. Leto didn't. I can't even put the blame entirely on his crap love puppy for Harley story. I mean Lecter spent the bulk of his screen time sitting in a cell talking to Clarice. But Hopkins' performance was scenery chewing awesomeness.
Technically neither was Lecter. Buffalo Bill was.
Most of us assumed that Leto would have at least 15 mins though.
He had 7. Some even say 6.
Lets break it down
Spoilers for those who haven't seen the movie
- One quick shot of them in a therapy session
- One quick shot of him torturing Harley
- The Monster T scene seems like 7 minute scene cut down to one minute.
-30 second car chase scene
- The 20 second scene of him laying around the knives
- A minute scene with the security guard (He was losing me for a second, but when he jumped into lap and grinned I chuckled. Seemed a bit TDKR there.) still a another scene shortened.
- The quick scene of him putting the neck bomb gun into someone's neck
- The flashback of him and Harley at Ace Chemicals. Another scene that was probably 6 or 7 mins cut down to 2 mins.
- The 2 minute scene on the chopper. Where all he's doing is firing a gun (great), says a few lines to Harley and the chopper is blown up.
- 15 seconds of seeing her at the end.
All this over the course of 6 to 7 mins.
Seeing if Leto could carry a full scene would have told me a lot about his Joker. I could probably judge there if this is going to work or not. The choppy editing stuff...its a mixed bag.
I think personally I would have rather just seen a full 7 minute scene of just Harley and Joker in Arkham.
Surprise us at the end when he breaks her out.
I would have just edited out all the other Joker stuff (keep the montage of her diving in).
Cut out the whole subplot of him trying to steal her throughout the movie.
That way it seems like Joker doesn't care at all about her being locked up. Then at the very end when he frees her its still ambiguous if he truly cares for her or just want her as his "toy".