I like Daredevil (2003). It is a dark and violent superhero film that has had a lot of thought put into it. It has great pacing, fairly cracking along until the finale. Also the visuals and the sound really enhance the storytelling. The significance of most of these I didn’t realize until I watched the film with audio comminatory by the director and one of the producers. They not only explain the intricate visuals and sound, but also openly talk about budget restraints - studio input/meddling, the re-shoots, MPAA rating problems, the CG that works, and those that don’t. This was really refreshing and made me appreciate the movie even more. Also we see the minutiae of Daredevil’s life - how he gets back into his home by spinning dials, his popping of painkillers, his scarred back, and the memorabilia in his home being from his pro bono work. However while so much thought had been put into these subtleties, the character’s stories that were meant to be the heart of the film weren’t as well realized.

Daredevil exists at great personal cost to Matt Murdock. While Matt seeks vengeance as Daredevil, his answering machine is at home recording the breakup from yet another short-lived relationship. Matt’s friendship with his longtime business partner Franklin ‘Foggy’ Nelson is superficial; Matt never lets the banter of their male bonding reveal his true self. And the only person who knows Matt’s secret identity, a Roman Catholic priest named Father Everett, gives absolution for the sins of Daredevil, but not the permission for his style of justice that Matt craves.

And Daredevil wants to explore this last aspect; it wants to be the journey of realization for Matt Murdock that the vigilantism of his alter ego is a slippery moral slope. But in this it is reaching beyond the scope of this film. After the death of his father Matt says that, “he would seek justice, one way or another.” In court Matt threatens Quesada that justice will find him, and soon after Daredevil dispenses this final justice. Quesada’s death is Daredevil’s modus operandi for his brand of justice; he is a vigilante who utilizes murder. Daredevil isn’t shown repenting this death, further reinforcing that Daredevil condones vigilante justice.

The opportunity to repent is passed up when Matt visits Father Everett after Quesada’s death. Here is a time for Matt to question Daredevil’s actions, but that specific issue isn’t touched on. Rather they speak in generalizations about right and wrong, with Matt defending vigilantism. Daredevil only questions vigilantism after he terrifies a child who witnesses him beating up a thug.

Originally this thug was meant to be the abusive father of this terrified child, and so Matt would realize that violence is a never-ending circle. Daredevil is the product of the unsolved murder of Matt’s own father, and now Daredevil perpetuates this cycle. But the script was changed so that the thug is just an enforcer for The Kingpin, and the child is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While this reinforces The Kingpin plotline, it is at the expense of Daredevil’s emotional journey. This scene should have been the turning point for Daredevil’s faith in his crusade against crime, but it has lost its resonance and so all that follows is hollow.

The hollowness is made even more apparent in the method that Bullseye is dispatched. Matt is supposed to have learnt that murder isn’t the solution; in fact he will let The Kingpin live because Matt, “is not the bad guy.” A wonderful sentiment, except just beforehand Daredevil had pitched a defeated Bullseye out a stained glass window onto Ben Urich’s car. This is despite Bullseye pleading for mercy. To further show how Daredevil’s moral journey hasn’t been thought out, Mark Steven Johnson (the film’s writer/director) states on the audio tack that he wanted Daredevil, via his super-sense, to recognize that it was Urich’s car, and so aim Bullseye to land on it. Apparently even the longest journey begins with a single step, but Daredevil’s moral journey seems to have taken a backward one.

The next step of this journey is supposed to be Elektra being dissuaded by Matt from seeking vengeance for her father’s murder. But why would Matt do so? So far there has only been a crying child to motivate this. And so Daredevil’s realization that Father Everett was right, that violence does indeed beget violence, doesn’t gel with Matt trying to dissuade Elektra from pursuing the murderer of her father. The journey that Matt has made isn’t explicit enough. Sure his life is shit, but he has had no other options that seem convincing enough to give up vigilantism.

And Elektra is supposed to be this other option, the life he could have had. But at present the love of a good woman is a one-night stand. She’s amounted to a few hours in his life, but she’s supposed to be his future. To fulfill this role Elektra needs more relevance to Matt. Like the comics, she should have been the love of his life from university; the ex-girlfriend who just disappeared. Then there would be a history between them. Her murder would hit Matt hard and leave him looking for another future. I will address this point soon. But as it is, Electra gives Matt nothing to look forward to and he has no reason to break his pattern of murder because of Elektra.

And if Elektra had been from Matt’s past then we would have been spared their initial fight. The “lover’s dance” as it was described on the audio commentary is pretty embarrassing. Apparently Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner practiced for several hours everyday for a few weeks for it, but it just doesn’t work. Jennifer looks athletic, Ben looks lost, and the fight looks out of place with the rest of the film. The bar brawl when Daredevil is hunting Quesada is gritty, dark, and violent – this is Daredevil’s world. The playground fight is all sunlight and what the screenwriter considers playfulness. Yuck.

The whole Kingpin story is very rushed, underdeveloped and comes to an unsatisfactory conclusion. There is no investigation by Daredevil into The Kingpin, and if Bullseye hadn’t yapped during their final fight Daredevil would’ve had no inkling that Fisk was behind everything. And after Daredevil has defeated The Kingpin Daredevil tells him that the cops are on their way to arrest him. But why would the cops do that? What is their evidence and who gave it to them?

Also Matt even states that he doesn’t believe there is a single criminal leader in New York. This could easily be a lie to cover his belief of it, but neither Matt nor Daredevil act on this hunch. There is no explanation of why Matt is rude to Wilson Fisk at their initial meeting. Matt tells Fisk that he can’t work for him because Matt and ‘Foggy’ will, “only represent the innocent.” Yet Matt has no reason to believe that Fisk is guilty of any crimes. Matt has never met the man before, and Daredevil has never battled The Kingpin. As far as Matt knows, Fisk is as innocent as any of his clients.

Perhaps Matt has used his hyper-senses to read Fisk’s vital signs like a lie detector, and so divine that Fisk is guilty of something. But without any more facts the crime is as likely to be infidelity as murder. And so far all we have seen is that Matt has a chip on his shoulder about rich clients. Maybe he believes the rich are guilty? But like Matt, Fisk also grew up in a poor neighborhood – the Bronx. If Fisk’s was a well-loved billionaire philanthropist, then Fisk could have debated Matt about how he himself had risen from a poor background to not only personal success, but success in the community as well. Fisk could convince Matt that he could help people more with his legal skills if he were to join with Fisk. Fisk could have been portrayed as a role model or father figure for Matt, and thus be the other option Matt was looking for.

I think there is so much material in Daredevil that there could have been two films, ala Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004). The first is an action picture that introduces Daredevil as an unrepentant and murderous vigilante. But Matt is a hollow man who is stuck in a double life with no future. That is until he reencounters Elektra Natchios, his lost love from university, and Wilson Fisk, a billionaire philanthropist who is the leading candidate in the New York mayoral election, but who also secretly controls all of New York’s crime as The Kingpin. Matt is drawn to both, for Elektra is a second chance for Matt to have a relationship, and a paternal Fisk is a second chance to have a father and a role model on how to achieve more for the public good. Drawn to both, and encouraged by Father Everett, Matt’s resolve about vigilantism begins to dissipate. Matt further questions his methods after terrorizing the child of an abusive father he beats up.

That is until Bullseye, at the behest of The Kingpin, kills Elektra’s father Nikolas Natchios. Daredevil is framed for the murder, and Elektra swears revenge. Matt is very troubled that Elektra is taking the same murderous path as Daredevil, and he offers her the escape route of starting a new life with him. But Elektra is already committed to revenge, and so she spurns his love. Having failed as Matt Murdock, he tries to talk to her as Daredevil, but is severely injured for his trouble. Bullseye kills Elektra and then pursues Daredevil. During the climactic battle Bullseye yaps that he assassinated Nikolas and Elektra for The Kingpin (not Fisk), but Daredevil’s murder is to maintain his reputation. Daredevil puts aside his doubts about murder for revenge against Bullseye. Afterwards he feels no better, having lost his love anyway. Finally Matt vows to find The Kingpin, and accepts a job as Wilson Fisk’s attorney believing that he can help people more by putting Fisk into office. In doing so he leaves behind ‘Foggy’, who was not offered a job.

The second movie details Matt’s growing awareness that vigilantism is not the answer. Daredevil investigates Nikolas Natchios’ death, and after defeating several of The Kingpin’s schemes comes to learn that Wilson Fisk is The Kingpin. The end of the film reunites Matt and ‘Foggy’, because during the film Matt has come to value the real strengths of their relationship. The film’s climactic battle is with The Kingpin just as it was in the first movie, with the memory of Elektra’s face in the rain providing Matt with the answer of how to get around his malfunctioning echolocation. The movie finishes with Matt finding the Braille necklace left by Elektra, and so he realizes she is somehow alive.

I have read on the IMDB that there is a Director’s Cut of Daredevil that is darker, more focused, and more violent than the original. It pares down the Matt and Elektra relationship and strengthens The Kingpin storyline. In doing so it may well address the problems I’ve mentioned here. I’ll certainly watch it if I get the chance.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 18th, 2004 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Action, Comic Book, D, winston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.