One of the best movies ever made! The Dark Knight, like its predecessor, is amazingly well done. Not just a story about a superhero, or good vs evil, it explores the depth of our hearts- what rules us, and what gives us hope. There are spoilers here.
The story picks up shortly after the conclusion of Batman Begins. Batman has given the city hope- criminals are running scared, and people are gaining confidence that good can win. The new DA, Harvey Dent, is a public manifestation of the growing confidence (whereas Batman is in the shadows)- he's Gotham's White Knight, putting criminals behind bars and standing for justice. He is the city's hope. The mob, on the ropes and getting desperate as their hold on the town wanes, hires someone to put a stop to this- the Joker. The mob thinks Joker will just help them destroy Batman and regain their stranglehold on the city- the Joker has different ideas.
The Joker, as Heath Ledger portrayed him, is the greatest movie villain of all time. I feel he accurately reflects Satan. Alfred, Bruce Wayne's butler, sums him up best: ". . . some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." The Joker has no regard for others, or even himself. He doesn't want power or wealth. He wants to create chaos, and see others (Batman, society) fall into that chaos. Or, more accurately, he believes that life is chaos, and societies should reflect that- and stop pretending otherwise. In his own words (pasted together from different parts of the film): "You think rules will save you. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules . . . "[society's] morals are a bad joke- dropped at the first sign of trouble." His claim: we're not good people, we just make up some rules and live by them as long as it's convenient. The second we're threatened (he says), we drop all signs of goodness and live for ourselves. We should put no faith in man, according to him, and abandon our hope in the same.
With that in mind, Joker sets out to incite chaos and destroy Batman by turning the city against him, using terror tactics. "Turn over Batman, or I'll start killing people." "Kill so-and-so, or I'll blow up a hospital." He makes good on his threat to kill- and terror/fear spread through the city. He makes people decide whether to die themselves or kill others. As his tactics "cross the line," Batman is faced with a choice- does he cross the line, too? Eventually, he decides to- more on that later.
In addition to terror tactics, Joker knows the best way to destroy the city's hope in man is to show the city that their hero, Harvey Dent, can't be trusted. Eventually, Joker takes the life of Dent's girlfriend, and through a concurrent failed assassination attempt, Dent becomes Two-Face. The Joker succeeds- Two-Face is enraged at the death of his loved one, and admits at the end that hope is lost- "You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time." He is fallen; hope is lost. He embraces chaos. He states, "the world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance." There's no hope in rules; it all comes down to the flip of a coin, in his mind. He kills other and dies a broken man. His crimes, though, have been committed in private, largely out of the eye of witnesses- and this sets up the point of the film.
The city manages to steel itself against the terror. They flee, they're frightened, but they avoid going completely off the edge and turning on each other (it should be noted, however, that their victory isn't due to goodness- it's because they're selfish, and don't want to be responsible for killing others- sometimes good deeds arise out of selfishness more than anything). Even so, the Joker seems to have lost- chaos is not winning. However, he has a wild card- Dent's fall. This is a way for the Joker to win- the hope is gone. Unless Two-face's crimes can be pinned on someone else . . .
Batman realized the reality of things. If Dent's fall becomes public, the Joker wins. The hero is gone; the city sinks into despair. So Batman takes those crimes on himself- he becomes the fall guy, to allow Dent to remain a hero, and people to remain hopeful. He says this: "Sometimes the truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded..." Gotham needs hope- and Batman deceives them to keep their hope in man. He becomes an outcast, fleeing from the police, who chase him for crimes he didn't commit. He takes the fall.
Here's what I love about this movie: the Joker is largely correct, and the hero is the one deceiving people. There is no hope in man. We are all fallen and selfish, no matter how good we seem to be. How do we react to this? In this movie, without mention of God, there really is no hope without deceiving ourselves into thinking we can make it on our own. In reality, there is a God, who can be the goodness we could never hope to be- He can be our hope. But in the film, without that option, we must deceive ourselves to survive. And, frankly, I believe we do that as a society today. As we trend away from God (in any form), we embrace humanism, and believe the hope is with us- and it can never be.
Being a Penn State grad, what better example is there than Joe Paterno? A legendary coach, who has helped thousands over the years- a seemingly good man. Yet, it's recently been brought to light that he knew of a colleague sexually assaulting young boys, and he didn't do enough to stop it. Joe, for all the good he did, was fallen. He was selfish. He was what we all are. Where is our hope? Where do we turn, when even our heroes fail us? There's only one choice, and when you remove that, you're forced to deceive yourself to press on.
There's even more here that I don't review, because this is already getting long and I doubt anyone's reading, anyway. Watch the movie, and enjoy.
Rating: A+
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