From Dent to Bent in The Blink of an Eye
So here we have a courageous District Attorney, Harvey Dent, one who is passionate about cleaning up the city and upholding the law. Although Rachel Dawes is his girlfriend, we are not shown any real passion or love between them. Allegedly he loves her, which is shown in the form of asking him to marry him, but the scenes are missing chemistry. So, when he gets half his face burned off from an accident in which Batman saved him from death, and apparently nobody felt the need to tell him that The Joker tricked Batman and Gordon by telling them the wrong addresses of where he took Rachel and Harvey to, and he learns of his girlfriend’s death, all it takes is for The Joker to show up and push a couple buttons and he’s off on a homicidal killing spree. True, he’s shown in an earlier scene threatening one of The Joker’s lackeys with a gun, it’s never implied in the scene that he’s wandering into anything near madness – or else every scene n the movie where someone blows their top at a bad guy means they’re just a couple button pushes away from psychopathic homicidal mania.
Filed under: Writing/Direction Tags: 2-Face, Harvey Dent, Rachel Dawes, Two-Face
Just so you know it was not so much the fact that Batman saved Dent instead of Rachel as much as the fact that had Gordon listened to Dent about the corrupt cops in his unit both him and Rachel would never be in the situation.
Also for someone who rights about all the problems within the film I would assume you know that in the comics Harvey is an unstable individual and even through the movie it is seen that he has questionable moments in order to achieve “order”
I totally agree. Even in the scene where he’s threatening the thug, he never intended to kill him because he was using a two headed coin. The only thing I was thinking was that he never really was as righteous as he acted. I mean, he did already have the nickname two-face, so it seems that he was already a hypocrite.
Two-face was an emotionally unstable character in the comics. He had a split personality that was repressed until his scarring when the other personality was unleashed and took over.
This movie was made for Batman fans and I find that those with the biggest problems with the movie are those who have never even lifted a comic book before…or understand the concept of fiction/suspension of belief.
I think with all the crap that Dent went through to get to that point of madness it wouldn’t take much. As the Joker said in one of the last scenes “Madness is like Gravity, all it needs is a push!” Besides I think he was more out for revenge of the people that kill Rachel and hurt him.
“This movie was made for Batman fans and I find that those with the biggest problems with the movie are those who have never even lifted a comic book before…or understand the concept of fiction/suspension of belief.”
I collected (and have been a HUGE fan of) comics for most of my youth, I am a Batman fan. I loved the first 2 Burton films and I loved Batman Begins even more. But TDK was (and is) extremely over-hyped with a lot of problems that people are overlooking or glazing over. And, hey, Batman Begins had a few minor issues but nothing near as bad as TDK has the ones that TDK has does detract from it a great deal. It’s “Heat” but with worse acting, various plot holes, and the lead characters are comic book characters.
I do agree with you and I didn’t think “Harvey’s” sudden turn to evil was one of the movie’s major flaws, I did notice it.
So, he kind of gets all pissed off about a girl that he didn’t even show much love for dies. Why didn’t Batman say he was going to the wrong place? He went to save Maggie originally right?
Also, with all of Batman’s tricks, why can’t he take directions or save two people. He seems to save buses full of people and hospitals but he can’t save two when he knows the addresses of where they are being held?
Can you cover the fact that Maggie didn’t do any acting in this movie? Was she even in the movie or put in at the last minute.
In all honesty, I am glad joker gets to off one of the main characters.
This is the MAJOR problem with the film. That this film was made for the comic readers is a load of crap. It was made for the people who would buy into the hype, and it did a very good job of that.
The fact that Two-Face was in the film for 20 minutes (and that’s not even screen-time) should be enough to tell you that his character was given the shaft – and you comic nerds should be the first to admit that.
There was not enough character development for Dent at all, and he had SO much potential in this series. His turn into Two-Face should have had the audience screaming “Nooo!!” instead we were left saying, “WTF? Why is he crazy now?”
P.S. Rachel’s character was great in Begins – horribly different in The Dark Knight.
I’m not defending the film, but can I ask if you really wanted to see any chemistry with Rachel and Harvey? Is it necessary? Rachel is supposed to be with Batman, so why show unnecessary mushy love scenes with Rachel and Harvey?
misterdoode, and tdksucks, and huxley
Did you notice what he went through before the Joker came in? Read the comments on “Box of Jokers” because they explain it great there.
Also to misterdoode, I was actually saying, “Sweet I was wondering who the second villain was gonna be!” Then when I left I said, “I’m glad Two-Face wasn’t in for long because I wanted more scene with Ledger’s Joker anyway.”
I never walked out of a movie but…whew! It smelled like Nolan’s brain excrement.
Do people not understand Harvey’s transformation at all?
You guys are trying to show holes where there are none, and it’s pathetic.
He didn’t necessarily turn “evil” in a blink of an eye. He was scarred, both mentally and physically. Not only was he helpless when his love interest died, but he also had to outright lie to her (Which he covers at the end of the film). Couple that with his physical pain (As he refused pain-killers), and his decent into madness is easy to comprehend.
Matt had a good quote (From the movie itself oddly enough), “Madness is like gravity, all it needs is a little push”).
And plus, “homicidal mania” is way off the mark. He went after those responsible for the kidnapping and death of Rachel, he had a very clear and acceptable motive.
I didn’t find this unrealistic at all, actually – it was wildly accurate and brilliantly portrayed.
Let me explain: a lot of supposedly “shining and wonderful” public figures are, in fact, sociopaths who get to the top through manipulation, decpetion, backstabbing, and bullying. The people above, anyone needed” to further the sociopath’s own ends, and the public aren’t aware of this: hence the manipulation. It’s actually a very common thing. The film even hints at this: Dent was called “Two-face” for years by his underlings, which is a very typical nickname for a borderline personality disorder sufferer (borderline is practically “two-face” syndrome, in fact). Borderline correlates strongly with sociopathy, and since these individuals have an unstable emotional base, and no conscience or remorse, all it takes is the right trigger to create true violent madness. As Ac described quite nicely, Dent got more than the right trigger.
Note that Chairman Mao, who killed over 70 million people during his regime (arguably the most tyrannical in all of human history), was seen by the Chinese public as a “saviour” or “messiah” – and still is by many. Mao had similar nicknames among his underlings, who usually knew better. So called “White Knights” often aren’t. A real “white knight” would never have had “Two-face” as a nickname. That’s the nickname of a borderline sufferering sociopath.
“Also, with all of Batman’s tricks, why can’t he take directions or save two people. He seems to save buses full of people and hospitals but he can’t save two when he knows the addresses of where they are being held?”
Although this is a little off-topic, I would like to explain this part to those who didn’t understand it. The short answer is that the Joker lied to Batman and told him the wrong address to mess with him, since the person Batman chose to save would die. Second, the locations were on opposite sides of town so Batman could, as the Joker said, “only save one of them.” Gordon and his men were not fast enough to save Rachel, while Batman, using all of his tricks, is able to save half of Harvey.
When Dent is threatening one of the Joker’s lackeys with the gun, there is a fairly long pause where he places the gun to the lackey’s head. At this point, I believe it was meant to be interpreted as Dent is having an internal struggle between his ideals and his wish to kill a man who killed Gordon and attempted to kill the mayor. The later events push him closer to the edge, and eventually meeting and talking with the Joker give him the little push it he needs.
I agree to a point….
I too was suprised by the whole, “I’m gonna start being crazy right… about… NOW! grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! call me Two Face! grrrrrrr, I’m gonna kill your family.”
But then I thought about it. Harvey was crazy the whole time.
Gun pulled on him in court. “oh I’m fine. chuckle chuckle. don’t worry about me. so how bout them yankees”
Judges car blows up, kills judge. “oh darn… well we need us another judge. why can’t we find one? let’s keep trying to get this show on the road.”
His girl with a millionare. “well, you’re just friends, that’s what you said. I believe you sweetie”
all that sillyness aside…
while I’ve never had only half the skin on my face… I’m sure he’d have been on major drugs… adrenaline at some point would have worn off. I don’t think he would have been functioning that well…
so, yeah, two face was crazy. and the character was done poorly.
it’s like if I started to tell a story about this guy who
that’s the last sentence
the end.
It was that shitty cgi that drove him crazy…