'The Dark Knight': Villain, My Hero

The status quo of "The Dark Knight" is pandemonium. The opening heist sequence sets the tone for director Christopher Nolan's anti-comic book film in which the Joker meticulously kills his henchmen and avoids police in a school bus. It is the Joker's plan to destroy all plans. That is all. A scarred past? He tells a mob leader his father gave him the quasi Glasgow smile. We learn the story is unreliable, simply a device to make us think we can figure him out. Money? He claims at first if he is good at something not to do it for free but later burns a pyramid of money. Does he just want to kill Batman? Of course not. Batman completes him he adoringly quips.

Heath Ledger is the unequivocal lifeblood of this film. Without him Nolan could not have transcended the expectation of hero defeating villain. For all the positive traits of "Batman Begins" and the praise it received for reviving the Batman franchise, you realize how immature it really was. Nolan built a limited foundation in "Begins" and obliterates it here and digs into the dark hoping to reach Hell.

Ledger is unrecognizable. No trace of Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, or Mark Hamill, all great interpreters of Joker. Ledger interprets nothing. I believe he drove himself insane. I would call the performance inspiring if I could shake the scares. Some have compared Ledger's power to Marlon Brando. I call that and raise you Daniel Day-Lewis, who weeped on Oprah after Ledger died.

Day-Lewis indeed commanded the audience to react in a number of ways during the screening of "There Will Be Blood" I attended. Unbelievable to observe a similar charisma only months later and in of all things a movie based on mainstream comic book characters. But it surely happened. Ledger repulsed everyone around me and seconds later had them laughing.

Because Ledger was so bereft of anything holy or just, I tear down my character to say he was my hero during "The Dark Knight." I knew those feelings would be gone--the anticipation of glorified destruction, the inhuman glee, the life I sucked from death on the screen--without Ledger, the unstoppable force.

They are gone now and I want to go back to "The Dark Knight."