There Is No Sanity Clause

We saw The Dark Knight this weekend. While we waited in line, we noticed that the fans leaving the theater were surprisingly subdued. Not the boisterous movie-goers you expect to see filing out of the summer's biggest blockbuster. It didn't make sense to us until the lights came up almost three hours later, and we found ourselves shuffling out of the theater as stunned as everyone else.

Here's the thing you must understand: Heath Ledger doesn't play The Joker. He plays the Devil. He weaves truth and lies; every scheme is designed to wreak havoc on multiple layers, including ones that aren't always evident at first; he can also make you feel downright sorry for the guy as he weaves one of many autobiographies spins during the course of the film. He's a master manipulator, and wherever he is, he's the smartest guy in the room. Yes, he's insane, but he's going to let you think that crazy equals reckless and unintelligent. He is neither.

Of course, a lot of that is as much a testament to the writers of The Dark Knight as Ledger. What Ledger adds to the mix is something he's clearly picked up from this version of The Joker, but what he adds... watching him move like a rabid animal or subtly flick his tongue like an angry serpent is to behold something you have never seen on screen before and probably will not again in your lifetime.

Look, I don't need to sell you on how good The Dark Knight is. By now, you've probably read dozens of such reviews, or have seen it at least once this weekend already. What's important to distinguish is that director and co-writer Christopher Nolan's epic telling of the Batman vs. Joker saga is more than just the greatest superhero movie ever made (and that it certainly is), but it's the year's finest crime drama, greatest character study, and Heath Ledger delivers the year's greatest acting performance. He earned an Academy Award nomination… and in my book, barring a Javier Bardem-caliber performance late in the year that at best could only match Heath Ledger's Joker, the Oscar is his.

Of course, there is a Batman in this film. I still think Michael Keaton was a great Batman, but Christian Bale has such great pent-up (and sometimes not so pent-up) rage in him this time that no one can hold a candle to the dimensions he's adding to either side of his identity. Bruce Wayne gets as much time on screen as his costumed alter ego (maybe even more), and I never felt short changed (as I did during Batman Returns, as good a Batman movie as you can watch that hardly has any Batman in it) probably because when Wayne is in the foreground, it usually means that Michael Caine or Morgan Freeman or Gary Oldman is on screen with him. Each of these characters gets more screen time and far more to do than in Batman Begins. They are not simply background characters kept around for the vibe; they are vital pieces to the goings on here.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's Rachel comes the closest to having a purpose of all of Batman's movie love interests. Rachel is torn between her true love and her new love, the "White Knight" district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, in easily the finest performance he has ever given). The film's recurring theme of man's duality obviously comes to a head when Dent's face is severely burned thanks to a booby trap set by The Joker, but it's also driven home by The Joker himself, who makes the interesting observation that he and Batman are just different kinds of crazy. Batman doesn't argue the point.

Aaron Eckhart, by the way, is outstanding. If this was any other film, we'd all be talking about the pathos he brings to the rise and fall of Harvey Dent. Hope dies when Two-Face is born, and thanks to Eckhart's portrayal of the white knight, I sympathized with Harvey, and I almost don't blame him for the darker times that are sure to come in Gotham.

While Ledger's performance is the highlight of the film, the production's not-so secret weapon is its screenplay (co-written by the director and his brother Jonathan Nolan). There are some points in the writing that are absolute poetry. At other points, the humor is worthy of absolute fits of laughter. And the ending is staggering and unexpected, but the writers don't reserve all of the film's surprises for its final 15 minutes. What the brothers Nolan understand is that the Joker doesn't have to kill thousands of people to scare the shit out of Gotham, he only needs to kill certain people, the right people, to bring the city to its knees. The Joker is a far more effective terrorist than Scarecrow or Ra's Al Ghul… but it's just as fun to watch how The Joker fights face to face: he hides behind his cronies, pushing them between himself and whoever is about to pummel him. He rarely goes after an opponent unless their back is turned or they're half out cold on the ground. And he never misses an opportunity to talk his way out of physical violence, which is not to say he doesn't relish a little knife play.

In the end, I don't know if it's good or bad that we'll never get to see The Joker and Batman go head to head again in the current franchise. Of course it's terrible that Ledger is gone, but in a sentiment I'm sure The Joker could appreciate, he has left us wanting more. Even if Ledger were still alive, I'm not sure I'd want him to reprise this character. That would almost be too much of a good thing. What he gave us is more than we deserve or could have anticipated, and for that I'm overwhelmingly grateful. You have no idea what's in store for you when you sit down to watch The Dark Knight.