"The Dark Knight"

By: Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

For numerous reasons, both auspicious and not, “The Dark Knight” has been burdened with anticipation—forced to outdo any film in the Batman series and perhaps even in the superhero genre. The unique atmosphere surrounding this film has only born questions to further inflate expectations. Could the late Heath Ledger win an Oscar? Could this be the best superhero movie of all time? If box office numbers decided these questions, the golden statue would have been engraved two weeks ago. But putting aside questions, expectations, hopes, genre, history and tragedies, “The Dark Knight” lived up to itself, and surpassed itself, as a truly great movie.

In “The Dark Knight,” Batman (Christian Bale) is attempting to subdue Gotham’s crime, but the riffraff of criminality mixed with complications associated with his own imitators keep the superhero distracted and disillusioned. It is Batman’s belief that what the city needs is a police infrastructure, not a vigilante warrior. At just the right moment, Harvey Dent (Aaaron Eckhart) becomes Gotham’s new district attorney, swearing to be tough on crime and pledging to pull no punches. The presence of this impressive new addition to the city’s crime-fighting force is immediately felt—scores of big-time criminals are put behind bars.

Batman, who was feeling stretched thin, is pleased with what he is seeing from Dent and looks forward to stepping down as Gotham’s crime-fighting hero. However, a new kind of criminal comes on the scene. Calling himself the Joker (Heath Ledger), this scarred, painted, greasy-haired maniac is true to his name, perpetrating his crimes for the mere pleasure of it all. At first, Batman and Dent downplay the importance of the Joker, but when the latter ups the ante by throwing the city into chaos, Batman is called back into action.

The Joker is far more sophisticated than the average criminal, or even the average villain. He is clever, diabolical and at least two steps ahead of everyone, including Batman. What is more disturbing about the Joker is that he is not interested in money, revenge or any sensible objective. He claims to want nothing more than to have Batman unmasked, but in the end all he wants is to make a game out of killing and chaos. Make no mistake, the Joker is refined and ideological, but paradoxically, in a nihilistic sort of way. He has a purpose and a plan—a way he wants things to unfold—while at the same time not ultimately caring, even for his own life. He wants to show that “everything burns,” and what better way to do that than to send a city of 30 million inhabitants into anarchy?

The mayhem brought on by the Joker causes Batman, Dent, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bruce Wayne’s perennial love and Dent’s current girlfriend) and the police department to re-evaluate their ideology, their values and what they are willing to do to win the war against the Joker. The truly terrifying fact is that defeating the Joker does not come down to putting him behind bars or killing him, for the Joker would gladly submit himself to either, so long as the images of the heroes and shining faces of the city go down with him.

This film begins as a fairly commonplace, action-packed superhero movie, but by the end, it transformed itself into a thought-provoking, profound social commentary. In particular, the concepts evoked by the Joker are startling and sinister. He is a true Nietzschean villain: he believes in nothing, and so determines to make his life a work of art. He unmasks all the hypocrisy and false ideology typical of any organized society—hoping to cause its very structure to crumble.

Heath Ledger does a truly remarkable job as the Joker, and the rest of the cast is fairly good. Christian Bale is good, but not as good as he could be or has been in other roles. Aaron Eckhart was just O.K., as was Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon was perhaps second only to Heath Ledger in quality of performance.

This movie is fast, thrilling and dramatic. It keeps the audience on the edge of their seats and causes them to feel the ups and downs of the plot as if they were personally involved in the story. With superhero movies currently all the rage, “The Dark Knight” is the only one that stands above the rest—the only superhero movie that surpasses the genre.

“The Dark Knight” is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace.