Non-stop hyper-noir potboiler

Rating: 2/10 (2 August 2008)

Really, a very unpleasant film. There's nothing but climax after climax ... no down time, no comic relief, per se. It's not that Heath Ledger didn't do a swell job; he did. But a movie that's nearly three hours long, which forces the viewer to spend most of his or her time squirming in their seat, is not, in my opinion, a very good movie. To give one example: it's said that Christian Bale studied a martial arts discipline in order to portray his fight scenes accurately. And yet, when those scenes are unspooled, they are shot in such close quarters, so fast and in such darkness, that it's difficult to determine what, exactly, is happening. Who cares? It's hyper-kinetics for its own sake. There are swell action scenes, but what about the relationship between the characters? Their development? Who cares? There's no time in this non-stop hyper-noir potboiler for any such softer sentiments. No time ... in a three-hour film? Nerts.