Pure Cinematic Brilliance!

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2008)

In 2005 Christopher Nolan reinvented the Batman movie franchise with Batman Begins by stepping beyond the usual cornball affair of the super hero genre and delving deep into the psyche of the man behind the mask as well as the city that created him. With The Dark Knight he once again raises the bar and outdoes his already memorable predecessor.
Having established the Bruce Wayne/Batman back story in Batman Begins allows Nolan to get straight to business in The Dark Knight. This gives the audience a deeper insight into the underbelly of Gotham City than Batman Begins was able to do. The police force is riddled with corruption and various factions of the mob are running the banks giving them huge amounts of power. In steps Harvey Dent, a DA determined to bring down the city's biggest crime families in one fell swoop. He also happens to be dating assistant DA Rachel Dawes, Bruce Wayne's childhood friend and potential love interest which makes for an interesting love triangle sub plot  especially when Dent wants in on Batman via a reluctant Lt Gordon, the only member of the force that Batman trusts.
Meanwhile, a face painted menace has stepped into the scene in a big way by robbing a huge amount of mob money from one if their banks. This is a move not motivated by profit but mainly to set off a trail of chaos in order to bring Gotham to its knees and in the process expose the man that protects its streets at night.
Not just merely a super hero flick for the audience to munch popcorn to, this screenplay is also among one of the best crime dramas ever written. Nolan co wrote it with his brother Jonathan and if you forget for one moment that it is about a vigilante fighting crime in a bat suit, you soon realize that it is as expertly written and as complex as the likes of Infernal Affairs (or The Departed, the Scorsese remake) or The Usual Suspects. The strength of the writing is what makes The Dark Knight really stand out from anything in the super hero genre. Nolan is a story teller and along with his brother they have you hanging on to every line in this film and the plot just completely absorbs you. They have also finally put The Joker on the screen as he should be  completely anarchic, freakishly insane and as menacing a villain you will ever see. It is The Joker's love of chaos, lack of fear, unpredictability and no clear agenda that make him the most fascinating and chilling villains ever to grace the screen.
A good starting point before watching The Dark Knight would be to read the Batman comics The Killing Joke and/or Arkham Asylum to totally erase from your memory everything you have seen on screen from The Joker before and to understand his character a little more. It is then that you will fully appreciate Heath Ledger's version in the latest Batman installment.
Ledger's immersion into the madness of the Joker has to be seen to be believed. He embodies this role in a way that very few actors would be capable of and I must admit I was a skeptic when he scored the gig as the Joker. But he proved me wrong and I am not saying that just out of respect for the dead. He truly has you captivated with every scene that he appears in a menacing and unnerving way, turning a super hero/crime drama into a psychotic thriller with his mere presence.
Christian Bale is once again brilliant and easily the most suitable actor ever to step into the bat suit. He plays the smooth arrogance of Bruce Wayne perfectly and switches to the bitter troubled soul of Batman effortlessly. Lt Gordon's character, played by Gary Oldman, is given a lot more room to develop here as seemingly the city's only trustworthy member of the police force. Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox and Michael Caine as the ever faithful and wise butler Alfred put in fine performances and a very welcome replacement for Katie Holmes as Rachel Ward is the wonderful Maggie Gylenhaal. Another new face is The Dark Knight is Aaron Eckhart, a fine choice to play up and coming DA Harvey Dent. In fact he is given nearly as much screen time as Batman or the Joker and commands all of his scenes with pure confidence. Overall the talent line up here is a casting masterpiece.
On the technicality front The Dark Knight also shines. It is stunningly shot by Wally Pfister and expertly edited by Lee Smith. It also has some of the best action sequences I have ever witnessed. There is a car/truck/motorbike chase scene that is truly spectacular and there are also some very well choreographed fight scenes going on here too. Striking a perfect balance between CGI and real life stunts, Nolan delivers action that will have you mesmerized and never doubting what is going on before you unlike others in the genre that are more akin to a video game.
The Dark Knight is as perfect as any action movie ever will be. It is dark, complex, brilliantly cast and action packed. Batman Begins was, in my eye, the best super hero movie ever made and unbelievably Nolan has gone and topped that effort and then some. This is pure cinema brilliance.