I just saw the new installment of Batman tonight, The Dark Knight, and
it's a tragedy compared to the elation you felt in the last film. You
do not come away with a good feeling, and yet it evokes so many emotions
involved on the current war on terror but set against the backdrop of
Gotham City.
The film starts off with Bruce Wayne looking for a way to get out of the
Batman Costume. The new DA, Harvey Dent, it taking bold moves to shake
up all of crime in Gotham, seeking to turn the mob against itself, and
break its stranglehold on Gotham once and for all. Bruce sees Harvey as
his ticket out of the Batman costume, and an opportunity to win back his
old love Rachel Dawes from her new boyfriend, Harvey Dent, since she
told Bruce once Gotham no longer needed Batman, they could be together.
However, enter the Joker and a criminal from Hong Kong. A con artist
out cons the mob, and the Joker sells the mob on helping him get rid of
Batman, and he'll get back half the fortune the Chinese con artist stole
from them, but he wants half of the billions that have been laundered in
China. At first the mob won't play ball, but then Batman travels to
Hong Kong to capture the con artist just like the Joker predicts will
happen, and brings him back to stand trial in Gotham, and Harvey Dent
has a plan to work a deal with the Hong Kong con artist to return him to
China, if he rolls over on the mob in Gotham. For their own protection
the mob begins to work with the Joker, but when you do, you might as
well be a General in Saddam's former army. You never know why the Joker
has your back or will stab you in the back.
What transpires is more of the Agatha Christie twists and turns you saw
a little of in Batman Begins, but this time the Joker wields the
majority of them until the end of the film. He brings chaos to Gotham,
and the scene of people fleeing Gotham on Ferry's at the end of the film
reminds you a lot of 9/11 after the WTC bombings.
The Joker targets law enforcement once the trials begin; killing the
Judge, Commissioner Lobe, and they try to target Harvey Dent, but Bruce
Wayne gets in the way, and soon Batman too.
Lt. Gordon, Harvey Dent, and Batman all team up to catch the Joker, but
when they do, he creates chaos like Batman did in the first film, but to
his favor. He ends up killing Rachel Dawes, which sends Harvey Dent
over the edge. He creates a no win situation for Batman, where he must
choose to save Rachel or Harvey, and misdirects Batman into saving
Harvey instead of Rachel, and the explosion kills Rachel at her
location, but disfigures Harvey sending him over the edge as Two Face.
You see this developing with a coin with two heads at the beginning of
the film, where he "creates his own luck" but by the end of the film,
the blackened coin finally has a fatal side.
The Joker pushes Harvey over the Edge and releases him from the Hospital
to kill the corrupt Cops who turned Rachel over to the mob to have her
life put in danger and killed. Of course he was going to marry her, and
she says yes, and then in a side plot, Bruce believes she is going to
marry him once he gives up Batman. Alfred knows the truth from a note
Rachel leaves for Bruce, but out of pity never gives him the knowledge
that she was going to marry Harvey Dent.
Batman uses a new technology I will not give away (must go see the
film), but it's very much akin to the Patriot Act which enables us to
listen in on the bad guys, but Bruce uses it as Batman to listen in on
the whole city. Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman's character) is
uncomfortable with having the ability to listen in on 30 million
people's private lives, but the Joker leaves Batman no choice if he
wants to catch the Joker and bring and end to the killing in Gotham,
which by the end of the movie begins to resemble what goes on in
Baghdad! Bruce won't trust himself to control the technology, and
leaves it up to Lucius Fox to help him track and stop the Joker, but at
the end of the film Fox enters his full name into the OS, to bring it to
its own self-destruction.
In the end, the theme is that the Joker has brought the best symbol and
new White Knight, Harvey Dent, down to his level, and Dent seeks revenge
by seeking to make Gordon suffer loss by threatening to kill his family
the way the Joker killed Rachel. Of course Batman intervenes and saves
Gordon's family, and in the process inadvertently kills the new villain
Two Face.
However, Batman doesn't want the Joker to win, and destroy Gotham's
faith in its best citizens, so he forces Gordon to lie and say Batman
killed the police officers responsible for turning Rachel Dawes over to
the Joker, and not Harvey Dent, and the film ends with Gordon
regretfully destroying the Bat signal with an ax, and Batman is now on
the run from Police as a fugitive of justice and a vigilante who has
turned his fury on corrupt police, and Harvey Dent is remembered as a Hero.
Oh, yeah, Batman does stop the Joker, but I won't tell you what happens,
you'll have to go see the film itself, and Michael Caine's performance
as Alfred is as good as ever.
This film opens up a whole new can of worms on the current debate on the
War on Terror, fighting crime here at home, and against facing tyranny
both over seas and here on our own streets of some of our own worst
neighborhoods.
+++++++++++++++
"Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought,
bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with . . . some men just wanna watch
the world burn!" -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWw0ov-cAUg
