Carnival of Carnage

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2008)

While the notion of "capturing the post-9/11 Zeitgeist" became a tiresome, overused, and seldom-accurate expression in the film-critic pool before the dust had even settled on that fateful day, it is hard to deny how much it has influenced the tone of popular culture. In 2005's "Batman Begins," the villainasylum director Jonathan Crane (aka "The Scarecrow")wanted to see Gotham City "rip itself apart with fear." In "The Dark Knight" (director Christopher Nolan's sophomore franchise follow-up), that fear has been given a very real personification in The Jokera character whose unrepentant brutality and calculated brilliance gives a chilling face to a malevolence that is never explainedindeed, its out-of-nowhere appearance is what makes it so damn frightening.
Picking up right after the events of "Batman Begins," "Knight" has Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, as haunted and conflicted as ever) relocated to an upscale penthouse, with devoted butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and Wayne Enterprises exec (and go-to-guy for high-tech gizmos) Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) at the ready to serve Batman's needs. Opening with a violent, elaborate bank heist that introduces us to the ghoulish Joker (Heath Ledger), the film eventually settles into a plot wherein District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), courting Wayne's on-off girlfriend Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Katie Holmes), attempts to take a stand against crime during election season, only to see his efforts impeded by the insane yet brilliant Clown Prince of Crime.
If "Begins" ended on a note where order was restored (albeit temporarily), "Knight" erupts in chaos in the opening minutes, and seldom lets up for the duration of its 2 1/2-hour run time. Nolan, who gave us the cerebral thriller "Memento," brings together notoriously conflicting elements of narrative and cinematic technique into a largely satisfying whole: the action is suspenseful and unpredictable; the narrative is comprised of twist after chilling twist; and the characters arcs are quite exciting and fitting. "The Dark Knight" is not a snobbish action film for intellectuals, but a meticulously assembled thrill ride that pulls the viewer in with the raw recognition of simple emotions like anger, jealousy, and fear.
As praiseworthy as "The Dark Knight" is, I had a few problems with the film overall: a consequence of most big-budget action fare is the suspension of disbelief that accompanies the more frenetic scenes (here, Bruce Wayne somehow rigs every cell-phone in Gotham with a sonar device that helps him pinpoint the Joker's whereabouts), and while Nolan knows how to stage breathtaking chases, some of the editing is awkward and confusing, causing us to lose track of who is where (and when). Additionally, the introduction of Two-Facewhile intentionally deliberateoccurs far too late in the film to make him a villain as formidable as The Joker, causing Eckhart's finely nuanced performance to fall in the shadow of Ledger's maniacal grease-paint fiend. The film overall is quite satisfying, but also stretched beyond its capacity in an attempt to give audiences their money's worth.
And what about Ledger? His performance is as singular and primal as The Joker has ever been, and brings a disturbing, sickly-psychotic face to anarchy that knows no bounds. Ledger's initial scenes portend the sense of murderous, blackly-comic pranksterism (the "disappearing pencil trick" that's destined for pop-culture legend) that marked Nicholson's signature performance in Tim Burton's 1989 effort, but becomes increasingly horrifying as the film progresses, to the point where we recoil in shock from all the evil his visage radiates. As Nolan is playing on a reality-based field filled with devastating consequences, his Joker is the antithesis of winking campindeed, Ledger's performance makes the argument for madness being an integral part of the human condition; where the humor ends and the horror sets in, however, is the manner in which he exemplifies not only extreme-thinking individuals (the Hitlers, the Stalins, the bin Ladens), but the persuasive appeal that mobilized the masses to their out-there causes. And that is what transforms "The Dark Knight" from a mere "superhero movie" into something chancy, unpredictable, and dangerous.
And also undeniably entertaining.