The Dark Knight
By Matthew Rodgers
The word “Masterpiece” is thrown around with the same regularity that “Kapow” and “Blam” littered the screen in Batman circa 1960 when it comes to the movie reviewing game. Even rarer than a sighting of the caped crusader is when such a label is applied to a film from the comic book genre, but with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, a film that only very loosely falls into that bracket, every superlative is deserved ten fold, it is a stunning success.
Building on the groundwork of Begins and working from a script co-written with brother Jonathan, Nolan has taken meticulous care in extending and re-invigorating his Gotham cityscape. Much is the same; Bale returns as the Batman, Caine with more screentime as sage-like butler Alfred, and Freeman with a similarly beefed up role as Lucius Fox, Some is different; Katie Holmes has been usurped by Maggie Gylenhaal for the role of Rachel Dawes, Aaron Eckhart is on board as white knight Harvey Dent, and Gotham itself is no longer the twisted nightmarish future-noir landscape but a faceless metropolis lacking an identity. And then of course there is Heath Ledger’s hyperbolically lauded Joker.
The quality of The Dark Knight is of such a consistently high level that finding a start off point with which to begin the praise is hard work. So the time when it peaks above astonishing is probably most apt, and that is anytime Ledger is onscreen. Whatever you’ve heard or read about how the tragically late actor immerses himself into the character of The Joker, nothing prepares you for what transpires in front of you; a twisted, horrific, blacker than black funny portrayal of pure unrepentant evil. From the pencil trick grand entrance to his genuinely creepy, tongue flicking stories of how he became scarred, it is a performance of such energy and effect that legacy is deserved and guaranteed.
Perhaps the only negative aspect associated with Ledgers turn is that it threatens to shadow the outstanding work of the ensemble cast. Eckhart is superb as the genuinely likeable Dent and perhaps has the movies most successful and emotive character arc. For those fans privy to Dent’s destiny the journey will be all the more heartbreaking. Bale too is expectantly brilliant, if a little sidelined as the film weaves its labyrinthine but always coherent plot strands towards the climax. The veteran duo of Caine and Freeman are also given much more to do than utter wise-cracks or deliver grandiose speeches, you get a genuine sense that these are real people fighting against the odds in a real world. The only real victim is Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes Mk.II, strong female characters in both comic and crime movies are infrequent and she suffers amid the machismo brooding.
The Dark Knight is a film offering very little hope, a post 9/11 crime epic whose comparisons to Heat are unavoidable, sure there is a wicked streak of dark humour and some outstanding action sequences – the batpod chase and kinetic opening bank robbery are suitably pulse pounding – but it is the impending doom, orchestrated by one of the most effectively intrusive scores, that gets underneath your skin in a way that so few films do.
