The Dark Knight (2008)
SUMMARIES
When the menace known as the Joker emerges from his mysterious past, he wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham. The Dark Knight must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.
REVIEW
Let me assure you that “The Dark Knight” does, eventually, end. This latest Batman opus, a sequel to “Batman Begins” that brings back most of the principal filmmakers and players, is an exhausting two and a half hours, almost none of it lacking in tension, violence, cruelty, mayhem and discomfort. If you take this movie as seriously as it wants to be taken (and it’s pretty difficult to avoid its grip), you will be wrung out. No one will wish it longer. This is an accomplishment of sorts. The filmmakers want to spread as much doom, gloom and unease as they can, and they know how to do it. The long running time, in fact, can be explained not so much as a requirement of the plot, but simply because the filmmakers needed more room to explore every avenue of making you uneasy. Oh yes, they might have said, we haven’t put a loaded gun to the head of a child yet, with his parents begging the villain for mercy. Let’s do that. Oh, and … This is a complex tale, though, not merely a cruel one. “The Dark Knight” is probably the smartest and most stylish action movie since the “The Matrix.” It thinks and philosophizes. The subject it thinks and philosophizes about, perhaps not surprisingly, considering the times, is the Iraq war. inRead invented by Teads We go right down the line, ruminating on terrorism, unilateralism, torture (and what it does to the perpetrators), even illegal phone-tapping. The movie asks the question: How can a tolerant, democratic (if corrupt) society save itself, and its principles, in the face of nihilistic intolerance? This results in some rather lumpy dialogue, but there’s never very much of it. The movie begins roughly where the last one left off. Gotham is a mess. A group of thugs in clown masks are robbing a bank, but not, it turns out, just any bank. It’s a mob bank. What’s more, the thugs in clown masks don’t seem to have a whole lot of, well, esprit de corps. They proceed to knock each other off with the nonchalance of a Fred Astaire tap dance, until we find that the last clown standing is really a clown – the Joker himself. The scene encapsulates one of the running themes of “Dark Knight.” You can’t trust anyone. Everyone wears a mask. Heath Ledger, in his last role, is the Joker. You won’t have any trouble spotting him – he’s the guy stealing the movie. Given the nature of Ledger’s death (drugs) you might assume that his would be merely an over-the-top, scenery-chewing, out-of-control performance. Far from it. This is a tightly controlled, tightly wound portrayal that seems to start with the voice – quiet, carefully enunciated, with the hint of a speech impediment or Southern drawl. He’s good with a knife, a magician with a pen (making one disappear into a guy’s head). He’s got a much more horrific back story than Jack Nicholson’s Joker, and there’s not an ounce of glee left in him (as his makeup reflects). He’s Gotham’s worst nightmare, a man who videotapes his torture sessions and sends them to the networks, a man who’s bent on using the freedoms of civilization against itself. Sound familiar? If you think of Al Qaeda, the filmmakers won’t mind. There’s also a touch of Hannibal Lector in Ledger’s Joker, but when I saw him saunter stiffly (which Ledger manages to pull off) away from the hospital that he’s blowing up, I realized his trope: He’s Forrest Gump gone mad. Christian Bale returns as a somber, poker-faced Bruce Wayne/Batman, a hero so reluctant that he’d rather not be one. The movie doesn’t have the usual good vs. evil dynamic; our rooting interest is muted not only by Batman’s troubled psyche, but also by a certain (intentional) confusion as to who, exactly, is good, anyway. Certainly, Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) are models of moral rectitude and avuncular support, but both are somewhat removed from the fray. Rachel (here played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes from “Batman Begins”) is loyal, but to whom? Gordon (Gary Oldman) is the everyman caught in the middle of the mess, but given the filmmakers’ views of the everyman, we can never be too sure about him, either. The movie definitely has a mean streak. Near the end, the Joker sets up an untidy situation where two groups of ordinary citizens must decide on the fate of the other, or die. The voting (for this is an exercise in Democracy under pressure, see?) is predicated entirely on self interest, and gets ugly fast. You can’t even trust the majority in this movie. Vigilantism is the only hope. The violence, and certainly the intensity, of this movie seem R-rated, but the editors have cut away at the last moments from blood-spattering details to save the box office. As I emerged from the screening, a security guard asked me to rate the movie on a scale of one to 10. I said that I really couldn’t say (was I entertained, or mauled?), “but don’t take your kids.” “He’s 50,” she replied. I guess he can handle it.