Movie Review: The Dark Knight

B. Pike - youngest of the pike brothers, movie buff, and the one and only reader of this blog has a guest post with his review of the The Dark Knight, and it's awesome - my response to come at the end. [Spoilers like woah, but if you haven't seen this movie yet, stop reading and go buy a ticket.]

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

Christians regained faith in god after watching The Passion; I regained faith in god after watching The Dark Knight. To describe the experience I had on July 18, at 12:05 AM, is nearly impossible, but I will make a feeble attempt at doing it justice. Roughly 1 year ago, I began reading the buzz on a sequel to what was the greatest Batman movie of all time, Batman Begins. Christian Bale was returning to don the cape and cowl, Michael Cane the cummerbund, Gary Oldman the badge, and Morgan Freeman the bowtie. We then learn that the role of Harvey Dent will be played by Aaron Eckhart, to which the “internet” responds rather kindly, but now the question jaunting movie-buffs’ and fanboys’ minds is who will be staggering into the purple suit of the clown prince of crime. Throughout the web, you could read the suggestions of those who believe they know so much more than the professional casting directors, Crispin Glover, Paul Bettany, and you could even read “If Jack Nicholson doesn’t reprise his role, I’m boycotting the film.” Everyone was so set on who they wanted as the Joker and despite all the blabber; Christopher Nolan made the decision that slapped all those jackasses right in their pimply faces, Heath Ledger.

The moment his name was mentioned, the internet was in flames: “Brokeback Batman, 10 Things I Hate About Gotham" and many more unoriginal fooling statements. I read the decision and mulled it over in my mind for some time, before finally IMing (remember when AIM was cool?) my eldest brother “R. Pike” and we were in agreement that Heath's portrayal had the potential to be awesome, but also the chance to be disastrous. How wrong we were, we should be lashed for having even a shadow of a doubt, but there is some light within my shame, that all those naysayers castrated themselves after downloading the pirated version (I both love and despise the internet).

Ledger’s performance was something I had never seen before on screen, the 'mis en scene' that was created was remarkable, because every time he walked into a room there was an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach, whether it was a new tale about his scars or the eerie and unsettling score by Hans Zimmer. Unfortunately for his fellow thespians his astounding presence left them in shadows of greatness so vast no one could shine. I've even heard ludicrous accounts that Bale was overrated, and that he was nothing compared to Ledger.

You simply cannot compare Ledger and Bale, because he's playing Bruce Wayne with everything the character has to offer, while The Joker has innumerable layers and facets of his psychosis to delve into; which is something no popular cinematic character has ever had. If Bale was playing The Joker it would have been fantastic as well, he's a phenomenal actor, and he simply had exhausted all of the resources of his character. Aaron Eckhart was great at playing the political idealist, and when he is presented to us, you can't help but believe in him, he's a political Batman, and he's not hiding in shadows. He's also very aware of the risks of his job, yet still performs his duties to the fullest, he is truly The White Knight, but white is easily stained.

Dent's catalyst SPOILER ALERT is the death of his one true love, Rachel Dawes. After this moment everything Dent had was lost, she was the thread that held his life together, and when it was plucked he fell into madness, which proves he was weaker than Bruce Wayne, who managed to keep himself together after the death of his parents. The Joker explains to Dent that his plan to defeat crime and injustice was impossible, because chaos is a basic and necessary part of nature. The question now left buzzing around my head is did the Joker win, ultimately Dent's reputation was saved due to the sacrifice of Batman's, yet Batman still broke his one rule he, intentionally or unintenionally, caused the death of Harvey Dent, who had to die to remain pure, but nevertheless Dent’s blood is on his hands.

Needless to say there were some errors in the means of telling the story, the main one being the confusion between Batman going to save Rachel and winding up saving Dent, which I have surmised to be The Joker playing with his mind and switching up the addresses. There are also some mistakes with how they convey how many people Dent killed, Gordon claims it was five, I count four maybe three, Detective Wuertz, one of Maroni's bodyguard, which you can quickly see Dent dispatching of before Maroni gets in the car, Maroni's driver, and I'm assuming Maroni. Like most movies - and always with comic book movies you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy it. This comic book movie just happens to have the most real fantastical premises we have ever seen. Simply because a movie has flaws, does not mean it can't be the best of all time. Perfection in art is impossible. But its progress, (the pursuit of perfection) can be marked and measured easily. Clearly, The Dark Knight has gotten us one step closer to that unreachable goal. Hopefully all of the flash will be trimmed when this bitch gets released on DVD, I can't wait, seeing as I've already seen it 5 times and counting.

The Economics of the Caped Crusader

Notice the awesome product placement Chase bank – middle left. Outstanding work, you capitalist whores. (click to enlarge)


Batman - greatest superhero of all time. And don't argue that shit about the X-Men who live in a parallel universe don't fit into our concept of "time." Batman is the greatest superhero of all time, space, and any combination of any other dimensions you want to mention. Everyone knows that he's the only superhero who could reasonably exist in our world - no radioactive spiders, or a sun-enhanced biological makeup, or some fucked up HGH that turns you green. Everything about Batman is entirely reasonable and could occur in our reality. He also happens to be an economist.

The favored definition of economics is Lionel Robbins' "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." So what do you do when you're Bruce Wayne and your fortune is more than you could reasonably spend in a lifetime? You simply dedicate your mind and body to perfecting those skills which make you a superhero. He is, in every regard, a pragmatic economist. He efficiently allocates the scarce resources he has available to enhance what he’s determined to be his comparative advantages; ultimately in what manner he deems he can add value to the world. Economists talk about societal gains all the time, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When each entity allocates all its resources to its comparative advantage, the resulting synergy does more for society than if each acted individually. Batman has determined his competitive advantages and plays to them accordingly. A necessary corollary to this is to have effectively defined your own personal value system.

"The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions." - Milton Friedman.

He has "Bruce Wayne," his father’s namesake and fortune, to which he models himself as the dimwitted billionaire playboy. While perhaps slightly condemned for his hedonistic lifestyle, he is well-known and praised as one of Gotham's great philanthropists. There are two distinct business/econ thoughts on philanthropy; first the Milton Friedman version that corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders - that money should go right back to the board members and reinvested in the business itself. With the excess money, new jobs and businesses and opportunities can be created, and those provide better long-term societal gains than simply throwing one-time sums of money at people. On the other hand, you have Freeman's stakeholder theory as well as M.E. Porter's competitive advantage of philanthropy; both generally state that excess wealth ought to go back to the surrounding community, aiding in building public works and structures. Porter recommends strategic giving, putting the corporation in a positive light. Say Wayne Enterprises creates a grant or scholarship for aspiring engineers, the hope would be that the recipient get his degree and seeks employment with WE. The stakeholder theory advents corporate responsibility and charity, essentially investments in the surrounding functional communities. Then of course, jackasses like Ted Turner argue that you should do both, donate one-time sums and create new jobs and companies, but the argument is long and boring so read about it somewhere else. Essentially, you could argue that Bruce Wayne is a Keynesian and Batman is of the Chicago School of Economics.

So what do you do when you really have all those resources, and want to spend them on what you believe in? Well, first, you have to clearly understand and define your convictions. The young BW realizes how wrong he was in seeking revenge on his parents' murder, but it took Rachel's slap on the face and his long exile to truly realize his beliefs. So what are they? Well it’s clear that Batman believes in freedom, fairness, opportunity, pursuit of happiness, all that cool shit - founding father’s style. Rights to a fair trial. Incorruptibility – he sees the inherent flaws of the police system and therefore creates the Batman persona as a way to separate himself in his vigilante fashion. He understands the nature of incentives and that most people act in their own self-interest - the very nature of crime. He believes in justice and accountability. When Batman first came about it was in a comic book line called "Detective Series." A detective is an economist whose convictions and values lie in fighting crime, adhering to those principles of justice and all that other shit we mentioned earlier.

Last quick thoughts, the democratic government we (and supposedly Batman) consent to inherently has those checks and balances we learned about in elementary school civics classes - the notion of accountability from different angles being absolutely necessary to arrive at the best solution for the greater good. Unfortunately, this practice is incredibly inefficient. Batman is private sector - he doesn't adhere to those checks and balances, he acts on his own strategy without oversight. And so, growing technology – the true definition of private sector, and a fundamental part of the consumption function (I know it's Keynesian, but it represents the overall health of a nation; the best technological innovation always happens in the private sector)- Batman has in spades better than the gov’t funded police.

One of the fundamental economic problems of cities, specifically regarding crime rates, is limited policing. Guliani is renown for fixing this in New York by greater policing and the CompSTAT system. Batman does the same shit in Gotham - only with his own cash, technology, and ability. Everything about Batman, right down to the very style of his martial arts (whatever crazy form of jiu-jitsu they called it, its based on using agility and your opponent's strength against him rather than brute force,) reflects an exceptional, intuitive understanding of economics. Use your resources effectively, play to your comparative advantages, and do all of it within your defined set of values. And just be a downright badass. Have a lot more to say, but this is a start. Go see "The Dark Knight."

More reading:
Batman Wiki
Stakeholders and Shareholders
Older awesome article likening Batman's crusade to Baghdad - the attraction of lunacy