I finally saw the Dark Knight. I am watching an English movie in Theatre after a long time, 2.5 years or so perhaps. The last movie I saw in theatre was Ice Age 2 Meltdown. I had been living on DVDs ever since. Dark Knight was a powerful and fully entertaining experience. Christopher Nolan made us think and not just enjoy some Batman movie action. In fact the action was not just mindless violence but were beautifully weaved into the screenplay. Nolan’s story has shown 3 different kind of characters that exist in this world. It could have been just another Batman movie with Batman fighting the evil, but Nolan went a step ahead and wanted to show us through this movie that real life is not any different.
(Warning: May contain Spoilers ahead)
(Picture Courtesy: http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/)
The character of Joker is personification of Evil. Pure Evil needs no motive. Evil exists in every one of us along side our good. Characters like Jokers exist in real life, they simply want to watch the city burn. The World is full of Jokers. They can pick normal people and use a simple motive and give them a little push. Like Gravity, everything else just spirals down and happens the way it should. A normal person gets turned to his evil side. This is a character of a Victim and victims are all over the world. Terrorists network are examples of this. Batman is merely a protector in this equation. He protects the innocent from the evil, but that’s where his job ends. Can he really take over the Joker? Can a protector protect the people by eradicating the evil side? Does that mean he has to kill everyone, who is evil or who is vulenrable to evil? Nolan has beautifully answered that in this movie. He simply says Good and Evil co exists and it is the order of the life.
There is no question that the Story and Screenplay were fantastic and Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was Top Notch. An Oscar may be waiting for Heath Ledger and Christopher Nolan. Lot of people have pondered and reviewed the movie already and hence I am not going to do the same.
I can draw parallels of this movie with another Tamil/Hindi movie – Kuruthi Punal/Droh Kaal. This movie’s story was made by one of the great film makers – Govind Nihalani. Govind showed something similar to what Nolan showed in Batman. The role of Nasser/Aashish Vidhyarthi can be compared to that of Joker, with just one difference Nasser/Aashish have some ideologies as motives and user Fear to turn Vulnerable Good Cops into working for their side. Even though Nasser/Aashish stay in jail they have enough people on his side who can help turn good cops into bad cops. Kamal/Om Puri is the protagonist and is portrayed as the Honest and Best Interrogating Specialist in the Anti Terrorists Squad. But irony has it that Nasser/Aashish use their men to push Kamal/Om Puri around and work for him. The best man in the good side has fallen and is now into the evil side. Of course, when Kamal/Om Puri come back to their good side and try to kill all the evil terrorists, he reaches the final point and realizes that he cannot kill everyone and hence leaves the infilitrating cop with the job of Infiltrating more and do the clean up with more generations of Good Cops.
Govind ends the movie in a similar way that Nolan did. Good and Evil co exists and they fight each other.
If there is any movie that I want to be remade in Tamil/Hindi with the same story and characters, it is the Dark Knight. This is my casting wish for the Tamil/Hindi Batman Movie:
Tamil:
Batman – Vikram, Nikhil (Nikhil wants to ride batmobile)
Joker – Prakash Raj, Daniel Balaji from Polladhavan/Kaaka kaaka (Abhishek), Me (if Nikhil plays Batman).
Harvey Dent – Surya
Hindi:
Batman – Abhishek Bachan/Hrithik Roshan, Nikhil
Joker – Shahrukh Khan/Aamir Khan, Ranvir Shorey (Abhishek), Me (If Nikhil plays Batman).
Harvey Dent – Akshay Khanna/Saif Ali Khan, Rajeev Khandelwal (Abhiskek)
If you have your own Casting choice for remake in your language, Please feel free to leave them in the comments. I will compile them and update it in this post.
