The Knight Doesn't Fall, Nor Does He Soar

Film: The Dark Knight Rises
Cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard
Director: Christopher Nolan

Hype and Hope. Two similar-sounding words. Totally unconnected. Except in Hollywood. Hope is the most positive of human emotions, according to comic book heroes and politicians. Hope separates us from the animals, so to speak. Hype, in its worst avatar, brings out the animal in us. One that is ruled by a single overpowering emotion. In this case, greed. Greed that erases the thin line between exaggeration and falsehood, that makes a fine art out of manipulation and coercion, that intends to unnaturally raise our hopes.

The Dark Knight Rises, more than any other film in recent years, reached Everest proportions in hope and hype. The hope that our unbridled expectations about a film would actually be met and overcome. The hype that this was what you were hoping for; now go get it. Finally the movie is out.

It has been eight years since District Attorney Harvey Dent died. His legacy lies with a rejuvenated Gotham Police Department that went after the mob and won. His memory lies with the people who have forgotten there was a Batman (Bale). His shame lies with Commissioner Jim Gordon (Oldman) who has to lie for a larger cause and live with the lie.

Into this calm arrives Bane (Hardy), a masked mercenary with an unclear agenda, but a very evident violent streak. In a series of well-executed moves he brings a city to its knees and leaves a nation helpless. The only ones ready to cross his path are Gordon, rookie cop John Blake (Gordon-Lewitt), and the sexiest cat burglar ever, Selina Kyle (Hathaway). They are not enough. Gotham needs its knight. Will he rise again? Dare we hope?

Influenced by at least three well-read Batman tomes - the best-ever The Dark Knight Returns, the badly-dated Knightfall saga and the criminally underrated No Man's Land - TDKR has added elements in terms of back-story and interpretations. There are nods to classic Bat-trivia, but always as a plot device, not as a pop culture reference. The plot is convoluted, for sure. There is a thin line between respecting the intelligence of the audience and losing their interest altogether. The plotline never walks that line, preferring instead to go one way or the other.

The canvas is wide and the scope is enormous. The soaring score never lets up in tempo. Vulgarity is eschewed, but subtlety is not embraced either. The aim is to go big and at times CGI is necessary. Unfortunately, the huge set pieces amplify its limitations. At the same time there are a lot of hand-to-hand combat that immerses the audience in the middle of the action. The fighting is well choreographed; at times, a little too well.

The performances are adequate without being extra-ordinary. Christian Bale seems to be more weary than world-weary. Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman have precious little to do. Marion Cotillard has a thankless role, while Anne Hathaway gets away with a lot of the best wisecracks. Joseph Gordon-Lewitt has a very meaty and important role. He represents the audience among the heavy-hitters on the screen. To his credit, JGL plays it really straight without a hint of hamming or quirkiness.

The performance most anticipated is Tom Hardy's. He deflects all Heath Ledger comparisons by not showboating. Enough has been said about his voice after the trailers came out. Now is the time to talk about his tone. Hardy actually conveys mischief, rather than mayhem, through his voice despite playing a character as imposing as Bane. A very nice touch in a very solid performance.

Christopher Nolan is known for his hard cuts that convey a sense of urgency. Here, the effect is to make the scenes lack cohesion. As much to do with the editing, this has also to do with the screenplay's shortcomings. For a Nolan film, this is a sub-par screenplay. A contrived effort. Nolan the director also has a few missteps. If you spend the whole of the first half setting up for a grand finale, either you should have a second act that blows your mind or the first half should be interesting enough that you do not think there isn't enough action happening. TDKR has neither. Though there are many sequences that evoke admiration and amazement, there are none that inspire awe. In one word, TDKR is not exhilarating.

The biggest enemy of TDKR is its predecessor. The Dark Knight is unfairly mentioned only in terms of Heath Ledger's mesmerising performance or his tragic demise. What tends to get overlooked is that The Dark Knight was lightning in a bottle. Even if you take Ledger out of the equation you would still get a rollicking entertainer in which screenplay, spectacle, performance and technology came together in near-perfect harmony. A movie that could be described only in superlatives. Once you have a follow-up to that, you are in trouble. Hope rises, so does hype. Both unbridled.

Catching lightning once requires a lot of skill and even more luck. Catching it again is all about luck. Neither the highly skilled Nolan, nor the millions with fervent, pagan hopes, nor the hype-masters are so lucky. TDKR is a solid entertainer that caps a trilogy that is among modern greats. The Dark Knight, it ain't.

The Weekend Heist

The best-laid plans often go awry. In a big way. I have been wanting, amongst other things, to set up a review series of Woody Allen’s movies, of Sci-fi classics, of Pixar movies, etc. I am still wanting to. Last week, however, I read a SlashFilm article about movies of a particular sub-genre that most people might not have seen and decided to try and get a few of them to watch. One thing led to another. And before I knew it I had a bunch with me. From Saturday night to Monday morning I started watching these whenever I could spare a minute. Before I knew it I am ready to write a piece on a set of movies that I started watching without any scoping out, planning, or order of execution. Ironically, all the movies dealt with those precise qualities – The Heist Movies.

A lot of the famous ones are not here, as I had already seen them before. No movie with a character called Danny Ocean or Ethan Hunt is here. Instead, I give you a ragtag bunch. Some good, some okay, some bloody marvelous. I begin, in no particular order.

Rififi

The godfather of heist movies. The standard that heist movies are judged against. A deceptively simple yarn about a con, who got out early for good behaviour, being convinced by friends to go on another job. The jewel heist is meticulously planned and executed, but things start going terribly wrong afterwards. Man can propose all he wants, but until he takes over the disposing part, he still leaves a backdoor open.

No article about Rififi can be complete without a mention of director Jules Dassin and the amazing safe-cracking sequence. Dassin was one of the many talents blacklisted during the McCarthy era by being accused of communist links. He was forced to leave the country and live in exile in Europe. Rififi was his major work in France. The safe-cracking sequence lasts for 28 minutes (according to the Net) and has no background music, barely any dialogue save for some grunts and the sound of drilling. It is an incredibly efficient heist as opposed to a flashy one. No wonder it was reportedly banned in some countries!

The simplicity of the process is what doesn’t make the movie seem dated. But do not discount the incredibly efficient direction. 30 minutes of a dialogue-less break can easily be the most boring half an hour in lesser hands. Here it is a taut, suspenseful sequence that never feels even a minute too long. If you are not a subtitle-phobic, if you do not get a fit watching a black and white movie, if you trust your own intelligence, then watch Rififi.

Topkapi

Jules Dassin is back with another caper, albeit one in a far lighter vein. His wife, the Greek actress Melina Mercouri, headlines an incredibly international cast that includes the German Maximilian Schell, the British Robert Morley, and the man of the world Peter Ustinov! It involves a bunch of extremely efficient thieves planning to steal a valuable dagger from the Topkapi museum in Istanbul. They hire a small-time conman Arthur Simpson (Ustinov) to take their arms across without his knowledge, expecting that if the Customs caught him, they would be in the clear. The Customs officials do catch him, but they assume the arms are for revolution against the government and force Simpson to act as their double agent.

Yes, the plot is as hilarious as it sounds, but not for a minute does it move away from its comedic roots. Actually, it does. During the heist scene. But instead of the authentic tone of Rififi, the sequence here is flashy and well-orchestrated. And Mission Impossible fans would do well to know where the hanging by a wire sequence really came from. While the colour in the movie has aged, the fun hasn’t. Ustinov even got an Oscar for having fun!

The Spanish Prisoner

I have no idea how I never heard of this movie before. Playwright/director is very famous for his plays and films with copious dialogue that never feel boring. This film takes its name from a 19th-century confidence trick. Campbell Scott (Spidey’s father in the new movie) is a young man who has invented a new “process”. His company takes him to a Caribbean island where he has to convince the stock-holders to invest in his process. While there, he accidentally meets with a rich businessman portrayed by Steve Martin, and an FBI agent played by the non-plastic Desperate Housewife, Felicity Huffman.

The Spanish Prisoner has so many twists and turns that Wild Things may seem mild. But they never seem contrived. I will tell you nothing further about this movie’s plot, but highly recommend for you to find it out. Some of the twists are obvious, some you will slowly figure out and some stun you. As is usual in a Mamet film, the performances steal the show, prime being Mamet’s wife Rebecca Pidgeon. Though it is hard to accept Martin in a role that doesn’t call for him to crack even one joke. The real heist is how frighteningly plausible Mamet makes this elaborate scam seem.

Heist

Compared to the earlier movie, Heist has nothing special to distinguish it as a David Mamet special. Of course it stars the beautiful Rebecca Pidgeon as an unlikely wife to a well-past-middle-age conman Gene Hackman. This is a straight-forward heist movie as opposed to a scam. Hackman is forced to take one last job (aren’t they all!) – The Swiss Job. The money man Danny Devito wants to ensure he is not cheated and insists that his nephew Sam Rockwell tags along. The heist comes across quite easily. Nothing afterwards does.

Heist is a satisfying film for those who like the genre. Not much for those who don’t. Unlike The Spanish Prisoner, the twists here appear a bit too forced. The pros strut out their stuff. And Rockwell is excellent, despite a stupid moustache. The only good thing here is Hackman never comes across as a ‘good’ conman, as is the case in most of these movies. He is just as bad. But better at his job!

Point Break

This is one movie that has been alternately defined as a buddy movie, a gay flick, an action thriller, a philosophical tome, a sex-n-drugs extravaganza. The list goes on. I would add where-do-they-get-these-character-names movie to it. Keanu Reeves is Johnny Utah, a rookie FBI agent who joins hands with Pappas (Gary Busey) to catch a bunch of bank robbers called the Ex-Presidents, because of the masks of former presidents (two Republicans and two Democrats!) they use in their heists. They come across this wild conclusion that the robbers were surfers and Utah goes undercover to catch free spirit Bodhi (Swayze) and his team. He falls for Bodhi’s former squeeze Tyler (relax, it is a chick) and his “set-yourself-free” mumbo jumbo.

Point Break is one of those cult hits that mean different things to different people. Kathryn Bigelow set out to show she is as good as the dudes in making an action film. And she succeeds. The way she showcases Swayze in slow motion kind of hints in your face that she had the hots for him. But then it is Patrick Swayze. He could make guys root for him in a dancing movie. Big, blonde surfing dude with a hippie philosophy. No-brainer. Keanu Reeves does that one thing he is capable of doing in movies. And he does that quite earnestly here, I must add. For me the best part was the concept of the ex-presidents. Period.

The Lavender Hill Mob

I like a lot of black and white films. Call me old. I prefer to call myself lucky. The Lavender Hill Mob is an absolute blast. The peerless Alec Guinness stars as Mr Holland a low bank clerk, whose only redeeming quality is his honesty. For 20 years he had been the bank’s representative for the transfer of gold bullion. The gold attracted him, but he was smart enough to know he hadn’t the means to steal it or get it out of the country. All that changed once he met Pendlebury, a souvenir-maker. The two join forces and commit the daring robbery. Do they live to enjoy the loot?

 

The Lavender Hill Mob is from the times when movies had a lot of heart. Mr Holland never comes across as a villain, but nor does his heist gets any sympathy. Human emotions like greed, frailty, foresight, innovation, stupidity and the incredible ability of kids to cause problems all come up to the fore. Do not think that old movies are boring or lack production values. This is edge-of-the-seat excitement that even Michael Bay cannot provide, giant robots notwithstanding.

For me the biggest thrill happened when a very minor character walked across the screen for a minute and said two lines. This movie was made way before cameos became the in thing. When this very famous actress comes and goes never to come on screen again, you realize that this is one of her first roles and that is all there is to it. These are the smaller delights that come from watching movies! And is worth every… whatever you measure it with.