Madness is like gravity..

Well over three months after its release, i'm yet to get over The Dark Knight. I did not quite know what to expect when i walked into the cinema hall on the evening of the 18th this July. Then the film began and this is an honest attempt to sort the jumbled mess in my head into some sort of coherent ramblings of a fan..

First of all, if the late and lamented Mr. Heath Ledger was still alive, i would ask him to take a bow. I, like all others before me, would like to begin discussing The Dark Knight with the villain, The Joker, played with such delicious malevolence by Heath Ledger.
Watching this film makes us all feel acutely for Heath Ledger's death. Every moment The Joker is on screen is spell binding and riveting. Right from the first moment the joker is revealed in all his gory splendour on screen and says the first of the several memorable lines, "I believe...whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you stranger"

Heath Ledger has completely immersed himself into this role. Look as hard as you might but you will fail in finding the golden haired actor with the rich baritone. You will, however, discover an an anarchic criminal mastermind, who spins the people around him into an inescapable web of lies and murder, deceit and terror...all in their rawest, most primeval forms. Like the director has been insisting all along, we get The Joker as a finished product, we dont get any clever little origin story explaining either his cracked make-up, or his scars......now wait a minute....did i just say scars?

I'm sure the two of you who still haven't watched The Dark Knight would like to know how the joker got his scars....too bad, you gotta watch the movie. Twice does the joker give us a tale about how he got those scars, and it is on the second time around do we realize that The Joker is a brilliant psychopath who's just making the tales up as he's telling them. That it's just a tool he's employed to paint the audience with more ambiguity as to his origins. The Joker also delivers some of the best lines in a movie ever. Heath Ledger has delivered a performance to last a lifetime and quite easily the best screen villain in all time. All the hype and hoopla surrounding the Dark Knight and Heath's performance has been justified, as has all the oscar Buzz. At the very least, Heath Ledger deserves to be handed the Academy Award for the best supporting actor, if not for the best actor.

Reluctantly moving on to Christian Bale's equally significant and brilliant performance. As Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale manages to brilliantly switch between the playboy billionaire nobody seems to take seriously and the man who's dealing with a lot of pain, a tortured soul fighting two battles at once. On one hand, as the Batman, he must fight the "scum of Gotham's underbelly (thanks Alfred!)", and on the other hand, he must fight the temptation to completely lose the Bruce Wayne facade and completely immerse himself into who he really is......The Batman.

Bale does a magnificent job in conveying all the emotions through mere expressions. Next up is James Gordon, played with wonderful subtlety by by the ever reliable Gary Oldman. Oldman plays the character with a quiet sense of suffering and unshakeable integrity and sense of justice. Discounting the buffoon that Commissioner Gordon was portrayed to be in the previous Batman films, this is the real deal. The best line of the whole movie, the best dialogue sequence, rather, is Gordon's epic speech at the very end of the movie....."A silent guardian....a watchful protector......a Dark Knight."

Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, though having nothing much to do, shine in their few brief moment of screentime. Special mention must be made of Maggie Gyllenhaal, who displays incredible maturity in handling the more difficult emotions during her final moments in the film, a feat Katie Holmes would never have pulled off. Kudos to Nolan and co. for the move.

Aaron Eckhart plays the American Symbol of hope quite easily. Dubbed Gotham's "White Knight", he brings fresh hope to gotham city. The standout of the whole performance is the way he displayed his slowly deteriorating mental condition throughout the m0vie- from a completely unflapable district attorney to a raving madman. It can be no secret that Harvey Dent eventually becomes the villain called the Two-Face and his transformation is masterfully displayed here.

The magnificent score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer makes a great movie truly epic. The music adds a dark atmosphere to the movie.

By the end, the future for gotham is very bleak and can make fans like me only look forward to the next with growing impatience. Come awards season, i fully expect The Dark Knight to make away with all the top honours. At the very least, an Oscar for Heath Ledger and for the best original score...

note:- This "rambling" is dedicated to Heath Ledger. RIP (1979-2008)