The Bauer Confidential

Bruce Wayne: I knew the mob wouldn’t go down without a fight. But this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth : You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand.

So, April and I finally went and saw The Dark Knight.  I kind of wanted to see it, but after a bazillion positive reviews, my expectations were soaring.  Did it live up to my expectations?  Well, yes.  Overall, the movie is really good to great (Note: we watched it in IMAX, and it was worth the extra dough).  It is as dark as they say, both thematically and most cases literally.  It was really difficult to appreciate the fight scenes with Batman who’s in a dark room, at night, with our protagonist wearing the trademarked black cape and cowl.

First of all the story, which plays around questions about morality, and should or would we break our own (or societies) moral code to do something we believe is good (or to save our own neck).  Would we kill someone, out of cold blood, if it meant saving ten to hundreds of people later?  The hypothetical answer will undoubtedly be different from what we would actually do if it were real.  This movie tries very hard to make those situations real, and we get to see what our protagonist does.  Will the joker succeed in pushing the good guys/gals over that moral edge?  I really liked the story, and it gave me something to ponder when the movie was over.  Because these are complicated issues and because this version of the Joker can be bit scary, I agree with this complaint about the marketing campaign.  This movie should not be advertised to kids, and maybe should have a bit more restrictive rating than PG-13.

I’ll talk about the acting in a moment (hint, I liked it), but I wanted to make it clear that this movie is far from perfect or the best film ever, as the fan boys would want you to believe (look at the artificially inflated high IMDB rating). The movie flows fast, but not extremely well.  There are some really exceptional action sequences, and the movie held me in suspense and kept me at the edge of my seat near the end.  Full bladder be damned, I wasn’t missing a beat!  The Dark Knight is a fairly dense movie, and you would think that two and half hours is plenty of time to tell their story, but it isn’t.  The movie-makers crammed a lot of plot devices and story elements into the two and half hours, so the movie has to move at a fast pace.  One (albeit small) problem I had was at about 2/3rds into the movie, the story takes a dramatic turn, divides your attention, and then the pace, which I didn’t think was possible, sped up.   The second problem is that the writer/director, in order to shove all of the necessary scenes into the movie, he kept skipping a lot of story elements.  If this happened once or twice, I might let it slide (or more likely just not notice), but it happened way to many times (hence, I noticed).  So, as the few negative reviewers pointed out, it can appear to some as a muddled mess.  Honestly, it didn’t bother me all that much, but it’s noticeable. Other negative reviewers didn’t like the dialogue so much, because in the last third, the joker gets a bit talky.  Monologuing as some may call it.  I didn’t really notice this, so I guess it didn’t bother me.

Now to the acting, which is really good.  Since Heath Ledger’s death, people were hoping that this last full movie he acted in would be great.  Expectations were unnaturally high, and his performance didn’t disappoint.  Every scene he’s in, he owns.  In fact, this could be his best performance of his short career.  As a fan of film, this is a bit sad.  If you look at just a few of his movies, lets say something silly like 10 Things I Hate About You, or A Knight’s Tale, and then look more serious films like Brokeback Mountain and now The Dark Knight, leaves plenty of evidence of both his range, his talent, and his potential to be even better. I believe that even if Ledger didn’t O.D. on prescription drugs, people would still be talking about his potential Oscar nomination.  Unfortunately, the increased focus on Ledger, distracts people from Aaron Eckhart’s superb performance as Harvey Dent.  Where as ledger had a very complicated task of transforming himself into a convincing psychopathic mad man, (pure evil through and through), Aaron Eckhart*, as Harvey Dent, had the complicated task of taking his character through a very large emotional swing, and I found him to be as convincing as anyone could be with what little time and dialogue he had to play with.  He probably will be overlooked at Oscar time, but he deserves a bit more recognition for his work here.  As for the rest of the cast, they’re good for what was given to them.  Christian Bale is a good Batman, but he didn’t have a lot to work with here.  Batman Begins sets up Batman’s back story, so in this movie, there wasn’t much of an emotion struggle, he just got to be dark and mysterious the whole time.  Bale is a great Bruce Wayne.  Gary Oldman is terrific as commissioner Gordon.  Maggie Gyllenhaal is a good actress, but isn’t given much to work with here.  Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman make the most of what they get, including some of the best lines in the movie.

Overall:  This movie is dark, thought provoking, fun to watch, and an exceptional movie.  If I gave a star rating, I would be 5/5.

* If you want to see another movie in which Aaron Ekhardt does a fantastic job, watch Thank You For Smoking.  It’s a really good movie!