Movie: The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Rating: ****
Batman may be the Dark Knight, but the Shining Knight who steals the show is the manic, irrepressible joker. Heath Ledger pitches in a rare performance as joker, Batman’s arch-rival. Ledger’s joker is even more hypnotic than Nicholson’s joker in Batman (1989).
Indeed, Nolan deserves high praise for bridging the gap between pop art and pure art. Initially, our super-hero is in an introspective mood, unsure about his role in vice-ridden Gotham City that, he feels, needs a hero with a face, rather than a mysterious, masked man in a rubber suit.
Gotham seems to find such a hero in district attorney Harvey Dent, who has put most criminals behind bars. Except the joker, the painted-faced evil incarnate, who proclaims himself as an agent of chaos and likes to carve smiles on people’s face after asking, “Why So Serious?”. The joker’s mission to corrupt the city’s soul seems accomplished when hero Harvey metamorphoses into Harvey Two-Face, a disfigured figure who feels it’s futile being decent in an indecent world.
But hey, there’s Batman, remember? Although one almost tends to forget him because of the heady spell the joker casts each time he swaggers onto screen with his devilish act and quotable quotes. This, though the Batmobile and Batman’s antics still work their magic. But finally, the joker hits the nail on the head when he gatecrashes into a party and grandly declares, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are the entertainer for the night.”