A Two-Headed Coin is Still One Coin

I've been reading a lot of reviews of Dark Knight and there's one criticism that pops up that I really must argue with.


It's not the Rachel thing or the Gordon family thing. (How's that for vague. :-P). I don't actually agree with those arguments for a lot of reasons which are spoilerific in nature, but I can see where they are coming from.

The criticism that I very very strongly disagree with, to the point of frothing irritation, is the one that insists that Dark Knight should have been two movies.

Be Warned for Massive Spoilers.




Serious, here be spoilers



The argument basically is that the story should have been separated into two movies, one featuring Joker as a bad guy and then one featuring Two-Face.

While I respect many of the people making this critique, I have to say that it a remarkably stupid argument.

The Joker's story and Two-Face's story are symbiotic. One can't exist without the other, and trying to separate them into two movies would change one very good, if long, movie into two complete and utter crap movies.

Without Harvey Dent's story, the Joker's story lacks horror. It has terror, sure. Most of his plots would still go as they did in the movie, wreaking havoc and destruction in their wake. But the horror element, that visceral, personal connection to fear and disgust would be lost.

Harvey Dent was the human face of the Joker's rampage. We saw him at his height and we saw him torn down and broken. His fate is the fate of Gotham. He takes the abstract fall and makes it personal.

Rachel Dawes can't fill this same role. Her death was quick and with relative dignity. She was obviously afraid, but she was holding it together. And when Bruce found Harvey, she didn't give into despair but kept calling out for his benefit. She died a hero. In the end, the Joker couldn't touch her.

But Harvey? The Joker took Gotham's Golden Boy and broke him body, mind and soul. The man who was the best of Gotham died holding a gun on a child, so mad that he needed a flip of a coin to determine death or mercy. And through his death, Batman became a reviled scapegoat, Jim Gordon, the most honest man in Gotham, became a liar, and Gotham itself is only being held together by a web of lies. The man who was supposed to be Gotham's savior became its doom.

The fate of Harvey Dent/Two-Face is culmination of the Joker's plan. It's his ultimate joke.

Moreover, as much as the Joker's story can't exist without Harvey's, a Two-Face movie is simply unfeasable.

The reviewers who suggest otherwise, I think, are missing one very important point.

Harvey Dent/Two-Face was not the villain of this movie. He was not even A villain of this movie. He was the victim. Yes, he did evil things, but he was also in unspeakable physical pain (considering Gordon established that he didn't take the medication and there certainly wasn't enough time for any real healing to begin), who had been personally terrorized after losing the person he loved, who from the way he described her as "his family" and the lack of any other indication of a relative, may well have been the ONLY person he really had. He wasn't an evil mastermind coldly scheming about bringing the city to its knees, he was just a broken man lashing out at everything he percieved as causing his pain.

It's not admirable and its not an excuse, but it's not the same as villainy either.

A movie starring Two-Face as the villain could not work because Harvey Dent's story is OVER. It was a tragedy. He was tormented, fell, used by the Joker and died. Yes, they could probably resurrect him, on account of this being comics, but it would not make any sense with regards to his character development to make him a villain. There really isn't anything left to do with him that wouldn't feel contrived or tacked on. His story is done.

The movie's long, but ultimately it's still one story. Not two.