Film Review: The Dark Knight

Director: Christoper Nolan

With the release of The Dark Knight Rises fast approaching, I decided to re-watch the first two films in the trilogy with the review for Batman Begins here: Batman Begins Review. The film is renowned for the performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, a role which he pitched himself to play the Joker as a chaotic psychopath with no empathy for anyone. To prepare for the role Ledger lived in a hotel room on his own to formulate the character and wrote down the Joker's feeling and thoughts during this time.

Heath Ledger as the Joker

*possible spoilers*

The story revolves around the plot of new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) who plans to take down the mob bosses and recover their illegally gained funds. The Joker offers to rid them of the Batman for half of all their money because Batman is the only person who can bring back their Chinese accountant to interrogate. From there the Joker makes numerous plans to force the Batman out of hiding so he can reveal his identity.

As noted above, the performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker is what really takes this movie from being a great movie to classic status. The anarchical performance of Ledger is mesmerising at times and his unclear intentions at times making him a more interesting villain. Elsewhere, the backstory behind Harvey Dent becoming Two-face is also an intriguing one which works well as a side-story throughout the second half of the movie. Aaron Eckhart is impressive as the disillusioned DA who has half his face burnt off by the Joker and suddenly believes that pure chance is the only truth left.

The two men finally meet

The film also presents an interesting conundrum when two boats are given the chance to blow each other up to be saved, one full of convicts and one full of civilians. Who deserves to live and who has the nerve to actually pull the trigger? It's intriguing set-pieces like this rather than just Batman fighting his way through endless people that pulls this franchise head and shoulders above some of the previous efforts. The ideas of how the villains can terrorize the city of Gotham are much more imaginative than you would expect so you constantly feel like you're guessing at what will happen next, which is exactly what you want!

4/4 Heath Ledger is superb as the psychotic Joker and the ensuing chaos is thrilling entertainment