THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

directed by Christopher Nolan


There's something about THE DARK KNIGHT that manages, while amazing you, to both confuse the shit out of you on a second thought and tire the hell out of you pretty much every time you watch it.

Even the first time you watch it, by the last twenty minutes, you're kinda wondering how much longer it is. It's not that it's not compelling. It's a helluva yarn! But by the time the end credits roll, there's a let-down. You know this is a great movie, you feel it in your bones (or you're a huge fan and you're willing to really, really wish it into being).

So... by now, pretty much anyone interested in this movie is already aware of what makes it awesome. Heath Ledger's version of the Joker is both extremely removed from the archetype, but also fits the mold in a way that makes all previous versions (even Nicholson's) seem somewhat incomplete (they aren't necessarily, they're just saying different things, and each one works with its environment. Heath Ledger's Joker wouldn't work in the campy TV version, and it would be practically an assisted suicide in the grand operatic mood piece that is the '89 Batman (somehow, Nicholson and Prince add just enough pomp and circus to the gloom that you find yourself giggling whenever either one enters the room (or the speakers), no matter what dead bodies are lying in state).

Once you go over the Joker's antics, things start falling apart. He seems to know exactly what happens all the time, has resources nobody aside from Bruce Wayne could possibly have, and has contingency plan upon contingency plan upon contingency plan. While the logical possibilities are there, that's a fun piece for a fanboy somewhere out there. (I'll google-search it later and provide a link). For the benefits of this, it's enough to know that it doesn't matter for the film. The Joker has no history, no identification, no fingerprints, and no concrete motives. He is a Mephistopheles, a Devil-Figure, a Commedia del'Arte offshoot, a medieval Satan mixed with a court jester, up from a makeshift Hellmouth somewhere, brought to this earth for one purpose: to fuck shit up. He's the fantasy-ghoul that we subconsciously made of our terrorist threats, before we knew exactly what we were facing, before we really wanted anything more than a target for our revenge. We are both mesmerized and mortified by him, as we are by every mythic figure of our collective unknown. He says plenty of things, but you shouldn't believe more than a nugget of any of it.

Christian Bale's Batman is considerably over-matched by this guy. (not that that's a big deal: all superhero's are clinically over-matched; it wouldn't be any fun if they weren't). In fact, all of our heroes are over-matched: James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Gotham's White Knight Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). And each one is collectively more at risk of a mighty fall based on their prospective levels of confidence in themselves. Gordon knows he's in over his head, and comes out scared but unscathed. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is constantly in over her head, but jumps in anyway, because she's an activist, so have fun with that if you haven't seen the movie. Wayne thinks he's invincible, but has a collective conscious wrapped up in his butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and his CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) that constantly keep him in check (or try to). The only one that's basically on his own and seems to think he's perfectly fine in that regard is Harvey Dent. Again... have fun with that if you've been living under a rock. Each one's over-confidence (or under-confidence, Lieutenant Gordon?), and general lack of faith in each other, each one's collective distrust of the system they're working for, compels them to keep secrets from each other, to keep things "close to the chest" as they continuously like to put it. As such, the only one who's constantly in the know is the one who's got spies in every department of every establishment and every building, and who's been staying under the radar because he's too elusive to catch and isn't the mob. Again, I'll google-search for the complete explanation, which may or may not be necessary to those who are down with the Mephistopheles explanation.

This all plays out wonderfully and makes for a splendid picture show. The main drawback is that we're watching two films that have been squeezed into one. The movie is two and half hours long, and that's not a problem, but there's so much going on and hardly any room to breath. The best, most resonating scenes in the film, in fact, are the quietest ones: the "double dating" scene in the restaurant, the moments between Alfred and Wayne in the underground bunker, and... actually, those are basically the only quiet scenes in the film. Somewhere around the point where Caesar is thrown around with palindromes secretly hidden in the names of street corners ("250 52nd street" and "the corner of Avenue X and Cicero"), there were a few moments where the action cooled down for a spell and everything should have set things up for a third film. Stretch out the scenes they had, make things more poignant, roll the credits, and have the third film shot before the second's gone to print.

Instead, we have the most rushed and overlong film to ever be dubbed "greatest film ever made". At least GODFATHER, PART II took its sweet-ass time, and nobody's accusing RETURN OF THE KING of not enjoying its moments.


****

On second thought, instead of turning this into two films, they should add 30 quiet, poignant, emotional, character-developing minutes to it (a scene with Gordon and his family maybe, one that doesn't seem like preconditioned foreshadowing in retrospect; one of Dent and Dawes that isn't a rushed between scene bit of nothing; nothing between Wayne and Alfred, since I really get the impression that their lives are nothing more than you see). I've followed 3-4 films without getting tired because the pacing was perfectly constructed. This one falls short of a masterpiece because it tries to do too much, and doesn't leave itself time to breathe.

8.16/10