Batman Begins: An Interesting Idea Buried in a Mediocre Movie

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on September 4, 2006.

In 2005, I heard a lot of buzz about Christopher Nolan's take on the Batman story. In the hands of the slightly dark and mysterious director of Memento and Insomnia, Batman Begins was to be a gritty and perhaps more sophisticated variation within the franchise. Unfortunately, upon my recent viewing of the DVD, I felt disappointed: Nolan's version was mediocre at best, full of contrived dialogue, cardboard characters, and only one interesting—though completely undeveloped—idea.

Nolan took on the challenge of portraying the transformation of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) from billionaire playboy to caped crusader for justice within the corrupt, crime-ridden city of Gotham. We learn that Wayne's parents were killed by a street thug when he was merely a lad; upon growing older, he takes a break from his wealthy life in order to travel to East Asia, develop an understanding of the "criminal mindset," and learn some martial arts. He trains under the auspices of a secret Ninja brotherhood that seeks to fight evil and injustice around the world. After his training (and subsequent break from the brotherhood's methods), Wayne returns to Gotham in order to exact revenge for his parents' murder and to take down the evil crime boss corrupting his beloved town.

The plot, of course, sounds silly (especially the bit about the Ninja brotherhood), and the silliness is exacerbated by Nolan's attempt to shove huge amounts of character development into a relatively short amount of time, thus producing canned dialogue that "tells," rather than "shows," people's histories and motivations. As such, Nolan fails to develop the characters in any meaningful way and gives us instead a lineup of stock Hollywood figures (and stars): good guy (Christian Bale), bad guy (Tom Wilkinson), really bad guy (Liam Neeson), corrupt official (Cillian Murphy), incorruptible official / love interest (Katie Holmes), honest cop (Gary Oldman), doting butler (Michael Caine), gadget guy (Morgan Freeman)...and the list goes on.

In terms of ideas, Batman Begins suffers from the same malady that afflicts many (though not all) comic-book movies: thematic development receives quick, choppy attention here-and-there but eventually succumbs to the main selling point of the movie — violence and cool gadgets. Batman Begins supposedly tackles the question of revenge—and the fine line between revenge and justice—but apart from some lame dialogue between Bruce Wayne (Bale) and Rachel Dawes (Holmes) and a completely undeveloped debate between Wayne and Henri Ducard (Neeson), the theme almost never shows up. (However, that might not be so bad: the Revenge vs. Justice theme is a tired one, and it would be hard to imagine this movie presenting it in a fresh or meaningful way.)

A more interesting theme that Batman Begins could have developed concerns moral and legal legitimacy. As an independent, crime-fighting crusader, Batman is part of a long line of superheroes who "take the law into their own hands," supplementing (or challenging) state authority. They fill some sort of need that stems from a deficiency in either the police force's capabilities or (in the case of Batman Begins) morality.

As such, regardless of their motives, superheroes who proactively fight crime do pose a challenge to the state's monopoly on "legitimate violence," setting up an alternate system of enforcement that aids—but is completely independent of—established authority. As such, to be morally legitimate, superheroes require a significant amount of epistemic confidence: they must know that the criminals they are fighting are truly bad, since the inadvertent killing of an innocent would degrade automatically their legitimacy — and would provide fodder to those who would claim that the superhero is nothing more than yet another criminal. (A state, on the other hand, can get away with a significant amount of wrongful imprisonments and executions before its very purpose is called into question.)

The other major issue that superheroes like Batman raise has to do with shifting alliances. At what point would a group of citizens feel that the state has lost all right to its allegiance? At what point could a third party, like Batman, claim to offer a better way—at least in terms of law enforcement—and build a loyal following? In the world of comic-book cinema, a clear line between the authority of the state and that of third-party alternatives does not appear to exist; those who would make such films would do well to explore this theme (especially if they want to keep the interest of audience members who fall outside the realm of comic-book fandom).

While these basic political questions may seem arcane, they nevertheless are finding their way to the top of our current political discourse, especially in terms of the Middle East. Western policy makers, in their continued inability to engage the region coherently, revert to simple political equations that support the state's monopoly of violence (the so-called "One Gun") while decrying those third parties who vie for power and authority (those "states-within-a-state"). Superheroes like Batman challenge such simple dichotomies and implicitly argue that the authority of the gun should be fluid, especially if a given state becomes corrupt and/or ineffective.

Such a timely question would have been highly appropriate for Batman Begins to address. It's too bad that Nolan instead reverted to a simple comic-book (and Hollywood) formula.

V for Vendetta: Inevitable Democracy?

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on August 29, 2006.

In a prior review, I noted that revolution was not a Biblically warranted response to political oppression and that democracy had no intrinsic value (though it has immense practical value). However, it is one thing to make such claims on an abstract, theoretical level, and it is quite another to live in a (supposed) democracy founded on a revolution. The fact is that we live in a country that still has some remnant of its classical liberal heritage, and this affects what we expect from both our political leaders and our everyday lives — i.e., regardless of any philosophical quibbles we may have with democracy, we still expect the state to respect our political rights. We are accustomed to such freedoms as speech, press, and assembly, and we become upset if any power tries to take those freedoms away.

Perhaps this explains why movies like James McTeigue's V for Vendetta (2005) strike a chord with audiences. The presentation of a heroic individual fighting against a totalitarian regime sells to a public raised (at least to some degree) on notions of autonomy and individual rights. "V" (Hugo Weaving) dons a mask, cape, and other superhero regalia, and spends his evenings planting bombs at government buildings and assassinating evil politicians and bureaucrats. The totalitarian regime in question is a futuristic England, run by a dictator obsessed with securing the country against any and all security threats (real or perceived). The script (penned by Andy and Larry Wachowski of Matrix fame) doesn't provide much detail about how and why England abandoned its classical liberal traditions, but we do receive glimpses of times past when political crisis "necessitated" extreme measures that may have been, well, "regrettable."

For more plot detail, one should turn to the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It not only provides more character development but also a darker, grittier feel. Using muted colors and dark, shadowy tones, Moore and Lloyd present an England that is utterly depressing, run by powerful thugs who repress dissent while fighting their own inner demons. While the movie does paint a disturbing portrait, it nevertheless uses bright lights and cleaner, sharper colors that induce a less depressing tone.

The other major difference between the novel and the movie is ideological. In the former, V is explicitly an anarchist: he not only wants to overthrow the regime, but he favors replacing it with, well, nothing. In the movie, V's end goals are less clear. While he wants to depose the current regime, we don't see any alternate vision — not even one as loose and open-ended as anarchy. He just wants to provide the masses with the opportunity to make up their own minds and find their own way.

Of course, the problem with the two V's (the novel and the movie) lies precisely in the lack of a viable end game. The anarchism of the "printed" V may sound ideal, but it ignores our Hobbesian reality, the fact that without some arbiter (though not necessarily a monarch, as Hobbes proposed), we constantly would be at each other's throats. The cinematic V is simply too optimistic; after all, if people "find their own way" in a vacuum, that "way" could lead either to the aforementioned Hobbesian nightmare or to another despotic regime (i.e., another leader who promised the restoration of law and order).

(Disclosure: I was an anarchist when I was younger, but I found the total absence of state authority hard to defend, given the reality of sin. Thus, I have moderated my ideology to that of libertarianism.)

Nevertheless, despite the problems with his vision, many of us like V precisely because he is fighting an alternate vision that we definitely do not like: fascism. I have yet to meet a person who honestly would prefer to live in a totalitarian regime, given what he/she knows of alternative systems. Sure, there are plenty of people who gladly would give up their liberties for some promise of security, but they do so under a representative regime, and they still think that they hold a measure of autonomy (i.e., that they matter as individuals). I have yet to meet someone who, having lived in a democracy, would want to subsume his/her entire being under collective state rule. (For a glimpse of those who do not have a choice of living under such rule, check out A State of Mind, an intriguing documentary about life in contemporary North Korea.)

Thus, despite the philosophical charges that one can raise against classical liberalism and representative government, despite the violent excesses that rebels inevitably commit in their attempts to overthrow dictatorships, characters like V still resonate with us. We can't turn back the clock — if you are reading these words, then you probably live in some sort of democratic system, and given a clear choice between your current status and a completely antithetical alternative, you probably would choose the former. This, of course, sounds thoroughly Western, modern, and bourgeois: the "inevitable" march of liberalism smacks of a cultural and ideological chauvinism that is dangerously triumphalist and ahistorical. However, alternatives that are both viable and palatable are lacking, and while certain efforts at democratization, such as the Iraq War, have proven disastrous, the ideology itself still stands. What else is one going to offer?

For the Christian, the march of democracy doesn't make much of a theological difference, but it does hold practical benefits. Since nothing in the Bible explicitly praises or condemns representative government, there seems to be no reason to eschew it outright. On a sociological level, we are all, to one extent or other, (lowercase-d) democrats and some part of V for Vendetta's message resonates with us. If nothing in that movie resonates with you, then perhaps you do want to live in a totalitarian regime. I hear that Pyongyang is an interesting town.

Aristide and the Endless Revolution: What Value Democracy?

This review was published originally in cinekklesia on August 21, 2006.

Years ago, a Christian acquaintance of mine argued that the American Revolution was completely unjustified. From a Biblical standpoint, of course, he was correct. Nothing in Scripture says that an individual or group has a right or obligation to rise up against oppression, whether real or perceived; in fact, one could argue that the opposite is true, that the Bible calls us to lives of suffering and to loving those who would harm us.

My acquaintance was pretty right-wing politically, but his sentiment ironically went against the ideological grain of the Religious Right. How could the United States have been established as a "Christian" country when its founders engaged in acts (i.e., revolution) that have no Biblical warrant? Moving beyond the United States, we must ask ourselves whether democracy of any sort, in any country, has intrinsic value and whether we should be spilling so much blood and treasure trying to promote it.

Such questions are inspired by my recent viewing of Nicolas Rossier's Aristide and the Endless Revolution (2005), a documentary about the shady circumstances that led to the downfall and exile of one of the most intriguing (and polarizing) political figures in the Western Hemisphere. Rossier first provides a little background on Jean-Bertrand Aristide, showing his transformation from liberation-theology-inspired priest to democratically elected president, the coup d'etat that led to his ouster in 1991, and his reinstatement to power by U.S. forces in 1994.

The majority of the film, however, focuses on Aristide's second presidential victory (2000) and his subsequent ouster from power (what some would call the second coup d'etat) in February 2004. According to conventional wisdom, several members of Aristide's Lavalas political party had won some legislative seats in, shall we say, a controversial manner. As such, the international community froze transfers of aid to Haiti's government, which is one of the poorest in the world. Haiti's political instability, coupled with the economic crisis, led to a highly dangerous situation in which the country found itself on the verge of all-out civil war. Thus, Aristide had no choice but to resign in 2004 and flee the country on U.S. transport. (He is currently in exile in South Africa.)

Rossier's main purpose in the film is to challenge the conventional wisdom and to argue that Aristide's departure was anything but voluntary. He first lays out the argument that the United States and other powers were never fans of Aristide, fearful of his populist rhetoric and policies and protective of the interests of the upper classes. Secondly, by preventing any foreign aid from entering the country, the international community effectively strangled Haiti, virtually ensuring the violent social unrest. Finally, rather than serve as an honest broker in mediation between the government and rebel forces, the United States effectively forced Aristide to abdicate his presidency by refusing to provide him security in the face of marauding bandits. In other words, the only meaningful choice that the U.S. gave him was to resign and flee.

Aristide's opponents, on the other hand, argue that the former president has no one to blame but himself. Upon achieving the presidency, he became autocratic and developed his own network of thugs and gangs loyal to his rule. Plus, he exercised no meaningful statesmanship while his country was falling apart at the seams: the international community had no choice but to step in and prevent Haiti from devolving into complete chaos.

While Rossier does interview figures on "both sides" of this issue, it is clear that he sympathizes with pro-Aristide forces and questions the United States' commitment to democracy. If one didn't suspect this already, then Rossier leaves no doubt that U.S. support for democratically elected governments is highly conditional. Countries electing left-wing, populist governments that eschew the so-called Washington Consensus receive either tepid support or outright opposition (see the examples of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales). (In the Middle Eastern context, Washington's contradictory stance is most evident in its opposition to the democratically elected Hamas government in the Palestinian Territories.)

Regardless of how one feels about populist leaders like Aristide (I'm not a fan), it is hard to deny the hypocrisy of Western governments that push for democracy as a matter of unthinking, knee-jerk policy on the one hand, while also harboring suspicion and even contempt for elected officials who happen to see the world differently. While Aristide may have offered poor policy prescriptions, he nevertheless was extremely popular among the Haitian electorate, who theoretically should have the right to vote for whom they please — without foreign interference.

On the flip side, we also should note that while populist leaders may support representative government as a matter of rhetoric and tactic, democracy ultimately just serves as a tool for material gain. During the documentary, Aristide himself praises his partisans who continue to support him during his exile; he notes that they are risking their lives because they want to see democracy flourish in their country. However, while that may be true for some of his supporters, I would venture to say that the vast majority voted for him because he promised them material improvement. For many, if not most, citizens in representative states, democracy is not an end in itself, but rather, a means towards some other end — one which may or may not be democratic.

So, if democracy is empty rhetoric spouted by the Western world or a tool by which wealth can be redistributed, does it have any intrinsic value? The answer is simply no. My acquaintance was right about the inherent illegitimacy of the American Revolution, and he could expand his analysis to democracy in general: the Bible simply offers no warrant for representative government as the "correct" method of political organization. Rather, democracy has practical benefits, especially in terms of diluting power and in offering an alternative to less savory forms of government (I'd rather live in a democracy than, say, a fascist regime). Aristide and the Endless Revolution just reminds us that it would be more seemly if Western governments (a) supported democracy consistently, regardless of who got elected, or (b) just didn't support it at all.