The Dark Knight (2008) August 2, 2008
Posted by gproject in : Cinema, Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Christopher Nolan
So it’s finally here – and don’t we know it. The latest instalment in Christopher Nolan’s rebooted Batman franchise exploded into US cinemas, breaking all manner of records and causing untold queuing at the mere mention of available tickets. It’s the kind of hype that money can’t buy: genuine audience excitement and anticipation. But as the saying goes: the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. Now, facing a film with expectation beyond the mere printed pictures on celluloid of its reality, a fall seems inevitable. Unless, of course, the movie can fly. And trust me, The Dark Knight soars.
Picking up some time after the events of Batman Begins, a ruthless and slightly theatrical criminal calling himself The Joker is committing violent acts all over Gotham. His latest, the robbing of a mob-owned bank, has caused Gotham’s gangsters to sit up and take notice of the Joker’s business proposal: to get rid of Batman. Meanwhile, newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent is starting to make positive waves in the city and, with the help of Batman, takes half of Gotham’s criminals to trial in one swoop. Seeing his city begin to regain hope, Bruce Wayne wonders whether he can hang up the cape, and finally let the unmasked political heroes take over responsibility – a plan The Joker is hell-bent on destroying.
What Christopher Nolan started with Batman Begins was a hero movie revolution – but as well respected as that piece was, it only laid the groundwork. This is the venture that proves you can make a film out of the genre. An honest-to-goodness film, with meaning and pain and social unrest and violence and madness and yes, darkness. The Dark Knight makes Begins look almost formulaic in its approach, taking the essence of what the first film stood for (batman as a symbol, superhero culture made real, and Gotham as a city on the brink of despair) and putting those things under the microscope. No stone goes unturned, adding layers to the story as well as minutes to the running length.
In two and a half hours, we cover the gambit of what Bruce Wayne and his shadowy alter ego can endure. There’s an element of grandeur in the opening, through to duplicitous moral decision-making and self doubt as the hard-working narrative stretches on. The film is symphonic in nature, playing its themes in haunting harmony, and it very much has the feel of an epic, without necessarily displaying any of the traits you would attribute to such a classification – fans of David Fincher’s Zodiac [review] may know the sensation. But for all the hard work of Christian Bale, this is not his movie; instead, it is the characters surrounding his central figurehead who are thrust to the foreground.
To not separate Heath Ledger would be strangely remiss. Outside of the attention he has received since his passing, there is no doubting the fact that he is exceptional in this role. 
His twelve-screws loose approach isn’t so much of constant mania than of unstable menace. But he proves a constant threat: unrelentingly focused, yet relaxed and playful. Whenever he’s on screen, the atmosphere in the room changes - an effect that’s due to the pitch perfect combination of actor, role, and writing.
But what of the others? I can’t help but feel that we may be sidelining the efforts of Aaron Eckhart, who is fantastic in a difficult role. The Joker might be a microcosm of evil, but he’s essentially a one-note character: consistently unhinged to the last. Making Harvey Dent work is not the simple task it might first appear, yet Eckhart always has him under control, right through to his character’s most demanding final turn. Add to this the upstanding excellence of Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Gordon, and the always-dependable old-hands Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman reprising their respective roles, and you’ve got the kind of cast that inspires greatness before you even consider the script.
As with Batman Begins, this film comes from a story by Nolan himself, along with Blade writer David S Goyer. Nolan also penned the screenplay, a task he shared with his brother Jonathan, whom he previously worked with on The Prestige [review]. Their chosen path is much more intricate than last time, weaving the dialogue around the film’s central themes, while beautifully foreshadowing later events. It’s also a much darker outlook, with an increased quota of menace and violence. Make no mistake, this is a 15 rated movie masquerading as a 12A, but that’s a necessity of the story - one that delves deep into the broken social status of a city on the edge.
And it’s Gotham, as a city, that forms as much of a character in this film as any of the actual people are. It gains its sense of ‘being’ as the corruptible prize that both thwarts evil and plays right into its hands. Gotham is the reason The Dark Knight has such resonance – it is the city that often controls and drives events in the film. It is both Batman’s sense of responsibility and the Joker’s pawn. Though it may not be a place steeped in reality, there’s no denying how real it feels when shown through Nolan’s lens. Not least when he revels in the moments – setting some events to an ominous near-silence, while allowing Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard’s remarkable score to punctuate others.
The Dark Knight is a masterstroke of achievement, brought on by the dedication and downright bravery of Nolan and his team to make the kind of Batman film that not only pays service to the fans, but also to the cinema-goer. It’s a brilliant and daring blockbuster that takes the time to deconstruct its social reality and then play on it as a source of narrative. And that’s important because for all the current attempts to subvert the norm, traditional comic book movies still adhere to a strict set of ‘rules’; consciously or subconsciously, they mostly stand by an out of date Hollywood archetype. Not here. “Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos“. Nolan is our agent of chaos. Welcome to a world without rules.
The Dark Knight is currently on general release.
Comments»
Hi, i watched the movie and i loved it! i think nolan is incredibely smart!!! and i’ve loved all his movies!
do u think there would be more Batmans by Nolan??
Well, as he has always maintained, he won’t make a third Batman film unless the story is worthwhile. And nevermore so than in this great three-part interview from The LA Times blog (well worth a read):
Part 1 ¦ Part 2 ¦ Part 3