Well, well, well. Speaking of reviewing movies, this one surely has to be result of the endless boredom i find myself faced with. But then, it also happens to be one of the ways to truly admire the flicks which made me sit glued and made me think and to rubbish those which made me puke. But then, it shall remain largely objective.
If i had to choose one movie, as a starting point, a contemporary one which really made me sit glued courtesy the terrific plot and the enthralling performance, it has to be Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Let me begin by confessing that i was never truly a great fan of Batman Begins. So maybe, the expectation that i had from this was not so great. And it merely didn’t meet my expectations, it bloody blasted my senses off the ceiling. This certainly is one of the greatest comic book movies ever to be made. The movie starts off with a Gotham city which is plagued by crime, with now not one Falcone but a lot of mobsters led by Marconi. I somewhere got the feeling that despite Batman being on their side, the public are largely still uncomfortable with the idea of a masked vigilante. In this edition we have the District Attorney’s office being manned by the efficient Harvey Dent who wont think twice before taking on the toughest of mobsters. With Dent’s arrival we have the Batman thinking of giving up his life of fighting crime since Gotham now has the white knight it ‘needs’. So now we think that after all he is going to be united with his childhood love Rachel Dawes. But that is not to be as she chooses Harvey over Bruce and leaves just a letter with Alfred conveying it. The second part is where i come to The Joker, yes ladies and gentlemen, this guy just doesn’t cease to amaze me every time i see the performance on television. He makes you feel funny and terrified at the same time. The scene where he makes a pencil disappear into a mobsters head, you get a measure of the evilness which is built into the character. A lot of the movies make the villain promise a lot and just when he is about to deliver, the hero steps in and saves the day. Not this one. He is toe to toe with Batman, only difference being he truly manifests evil. When the Joker promises here, he delivers, whether it be killing someone close to Batman, or managing to corrupt the incorruptible. He manages to put a lot of legendary Hollywood villains combined, to shame. In his second last performance before his death, Heath Ledger gives a remarkable performance.
Aaron Eckhart too justifies his role as the white knight of Gotham city. The transition from the white knight to the two face is well put. He too is a vigilante like the Batman, the only difference being the Batman ends up taking the responsibility for his offing the criminals, since he has an image to live up to. The white knight. The only time he is a real threat is when he has issues with Gordon, whom he believes was responsible for Rachels death. What Nolan, the slimy genius has done in the midst of all this is to create the character who somehow stumbles upon the real identity of Bruce Wayne and is about to reveal it to the media. A clever ploy for the sequel.
The only drag in the movie was felt when the Joker plants a bomb in each boat, one with the ordinary citizens and one with criminals, where the Joker expects them to make the right choice, of killing each other for survival, his idea of corrupting them, of bringing the Joker in each one of them when faced with their own death. The scene is a drag because of the duration, where they deliberate over who wants to make their hands dirty.
Then you do have the clichéd talk of how the Joker can never come to kill the Batman, or vice versa, as they complete each other, without the other, they lack meaningful existence. It is at the same point that the Joker tells Batman how he took the best of Gotham, Dent, and turned him against them, showed them his true face. It is this very exposure that Batman seeks to protect right after he saves Gordons son from Dent. The poor boy asks the same question which you and me would have, why is the Batman running? He didn’t do anything wrong! Dent killed the 5 policemen! Gordon tells him why Batman has to run, because he can take it, because unlike Harvey Dent, he is not the hero Gotham needs, but one it deserves, he can wait for his turn. He ll still protect Gotham as the Dark Knight.
There are 360 degree pans around characters in several scenes. You all know what that is normally. The Michael Bay special. Nolan never abuses it and keeps it slow enough that you can follow everything going on in the scene. And a true test to craftsmanship, never in this film was I distracted by CGI. When it is used, it is so beautifully handled that it never stands out. That is the true success of proper CGI. Nolan has managed to make the movie so thick with the atmosphere, tenseness throughout, that the only thing it is flawed in, is that it leaves you wanting for more. And yes, the comic book movies now have a new benchmark.
–Abhilash D
Behind the Veil 