Flawed but near perfect

Rating: 9/10 (10 September 2008)

This film has been compared to greatest works of art on our earth today. Let's not get ahead of ourselves The Dark Knight is still just a movie and a blockbuster at that! It is hardly a film of the same cultural impact as say, Apocalypse Now or Pulp Fiction. This is still big audience entertainment but what perhaps makes this film better than the reams of summer blockbusters (a lot of which are now comic book films) is that it is not a family summer film.
Far from it in fact. This is of course down to the presence of Heath Ledger and Director Christopher Nolan (who I pray becomes a messiah of cinema following this film). With Ledger creating the most brutal psycho since Hannibal Lector, in the same year as Anton Chirugh and Daniel Plainview no less, there is no way that this film's Joker can appease children in the same way recent Batman films have, Begins excluded. The performance is one that does just dominate the entire film but leaves you chilled afterwards. As a final completed performance Heath Ledger has left this world an icon. The terror every frame he is in permeates throughout those he is absent from.
Nolan however is the real genius of the film for without him there would never have been Heath Ledger in this film to begin or a Joker quite as dark and terrifying. Despite fantastic action sequences he has made this film undeniably a character piece and a portrait of city. The scenes showing both criminals and citizens deciding each other's fate is as powerful a scene as any with the Joker in it. While Gotham is indeed fictional the corruption that consumes it is all too apparent in the modern world most notably in the America we are shown in shows like The Wire, The Sopranos and Deadwood (an allegory for the modern world if you will). Nolan's greatest achievement is taking a blockbuster and making it both entertaining and beautiful. Immediately relevant and timeless in the years to come.
The actors who have been forgotten in Ledger's wake are the equally brilliant but more subtly played Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart (arguably the second best performance in this film). Both are men who uphold the law but struggle to do so in a world where everyone around them is for sale while Batman does so without issue.
Many have criticised Batman not being at the centre of this film, which is true. Christian Bale is now behind the mask far more than he is Bruce Wayne but that is not the issue. Batman Begins was about Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. The Dark Knight is about Batman trying to maintain a world with Bruce Wayne still in it. In making this film about Gotham the film is undeniably about Harvey Dent and its his story that has the most impact as it plays like a Greek tragedy, and Nolan does it so poetically. The film has been compared to Heat a lot already but a distinction that needs to be made is with Fincher's Se7en. In that film its ending took time to appreciate how anti-Hollywood it was. The Dark Knight has a similar impact but is undeniably as powerful.
The film is still a blockbuster but nothing has been seen like this since Jaws invented the term, and that film had a child die on screen. Imagine a comic film where the hero breaks a villain's legs. That is what this film has. Hopefully it has made a bigger impact on movies because if more films are like this then Hollywood is entering a new golden age. We just might have to wait a while to see its effects. I cannot wait.