The Joke’s On You!

In a time where villains just aren’t respected anymore, something last week arose from the dust. Something incredibly sinister, something so vile, that you just had to respect it. There will never be another Jack Napier (if that’s even his name) projected on your screen again? Why? Because Heath Ledger nailed the role…on his first try. I mean it takes alot to outwit Jack Nicholson. And let’s give credit where credit is due. Nicholson nailed the Joker role in the first batman movie, but Ledger, pretty much took the gold in The Dark Knight. Don’t expect any future movies featuring the Joker because after you watch Heath’s stellar performance, you’ll never wanna see the intelligent D.C. comic book jester ever again.

What makes Ledger’s performance so great is his uncanny ability to portray to us a person who is truly and in every way, insane. No one was pardoned from the Joker’s wrath. And when I mean no one…I mean, no one. And for good reason. You see the Joker that Ledger showed us is the type of person that we all aspire to be. He was unmerciful, a prankster, and above all things, remarkably intelligent despite the scars on his face and the rundown purple suit. His undying passion, like all great revolutionaries, was to stimulate anarchy. *Warning: SPOILER ALERT!* Observe the following passage he recited to Harvey Dent after blowing up his soon to be wife and leaving Dent with half a mangled face.

“Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one. I just *do* things. I’m a wrench in the gears. I *hate* plans. Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So when I say that what happened to you and your girlfriend wasn’t personal, you know I’M telling the truth.
[hands Dent a gun]

It’s a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fear.”

So umm, this is what I mean by intelligent. There is truly nothing more terrifying in the world than a wise prankster. Think about it. Ledger’s Joker broke down his madness throughout the entire movie. Nicholson’s never even gave us a chance. By the end of The Dark Knight, all you really wanted to do was admit yourself into mental facility or hang around psychologically warped individuals just to be cool. Because, and to quote him again:

“What does not kill you, makes you…stranger.”

I’m hooked. I wanna be strange. Rest in peace Heath Ledger.