The Dark Knight has smashed the records. It became the fastest movie to reach $200mil. It earned 158.4 mil on its first weekend, setting another record. A lot of people are seeing it, and then seeing it again. I won't be joining that list. As is the case in my movie writing, I will not be critiquing the acting or directing, just discussing the theme and prevailing thoughts of the movie. So there will be no drooling over the job done by Heath Ledger here.
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*Spoiler Warning
The movie is very scattered in developing a point. The name of the movie and the conversation at the end make the argument that a hero should be willing to be looked down upon in order to benefit the people he is trying to help. Batman was willing to be a "dark knight" rather than a knight in shining armor when he decided to take the fall for Two-Face's shift to evil. I would agree that a hero should not be concerned about how he is perceived, but I would not agree with the lie that Commissioner Gordon and Batman agreed to tell in order to let the people have hope. This point highlights my frustration with the movie, and American leadership in general. There is this general conception that the public is stupid and not able to handle the truth like those in leadership can. Left unchecked for a while, this view of leadership will lead to a lack of accountability, which in turn will lead to ever-increasing abuses of power. It is definitely not the characteristic of a hero, but that is why Batman is a dark hero.
After I left the movie, I felt that I just sat through a propaganda film trying to manipulate me into believing that it is okay to be violent to those that are unstable in this world. It was like an argument for American military involvment in any of the troublespots around the world because we always characterize the leaders in those places as unstable and impossible to negotiate with. Batman and others reiterated the point throughout the film that the Joker is the type of person that one can only resort to violence to get under control. The problem with taking this logic to its conclusion is that it would be done through impulse rather than some scientific criteria to define who is psychotic. Leadership, and the general public, would inevitably begin to loosely define what makes someone so crazy that he cannot be communicated with. Everyone that holds a different point of view would eventually be classified as a crazy person that needs to be brutalized into agreeing with us or restrained from being different. Soon we would have people fighting one another while both argue that the other is the type of person that can not be negotiated with. Actually, we might already have that. It is kind of like "just war" in that every side always makes an argument for why their view is just. In this scenario where we could use violence against the individual, or leader of a nation, who we perceive as being mentally off, everyone would make the argument that their foe is mentally off and a good example of someone that would only respond to violence.
Combine these first two points and we are left with a handbook on being a dictator. Christopher Nolan is the Machiavelli of our time.
Commissioner Gordon was almost a hero in the movie, but then he decided to go along with the lie to protect the citizens from losing hope from reality.
Two-Face was an example of falling when the cards don't go your way. When tragedy happened, he folded and used his disfigurement as an excuse to be the evil person that he always had inside of him. He was not strong enough to withstand difficult circumstances.
In the end, the only redeeming people in the whole movie were the citizens on the two boats who the joker tried to have kill each other; the criminals moreso than the regular citizens because the prisoner took the trigger away from the guard and threw it out of the window while the citizens decided to kill the prisoners. However, the logic behind the general public being the true hero was kind of strained because earlier they blamed the people for allowing the city to become the way it was. This view also does not go along with the idea that the public cannot handle the truth. The refusal to by the people to blow each other up was the redeeming moment in the movie, but the theme was not developed consistently or well.
I left the movie disgusted by the thoughts, but it was an entertaining flick and led to a good hour and a half discussion afterward about the themes. It inspired me to go kill that stupid guy that just won't agree with my points in my movie reviews because he is just irrational and not one that can be dealt with by reason.
Entertaining: 4/5
Inspiring: 1/5
Ethical Thinking: 5/5
