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Date: 3/15/2018
What I’m watching is a fun animated superhero feature and an excellent documentary.
On Blu-ray: Gotham by Gaslight
While critics and many fans have been gritting their teeth over the uneven quality and direction of the DC live action superhero films, for years fans have enjoyed animated features featuring DC characters that have had a far great rate of success.
For some people who enjoy superhero stories without being a comic book fan, I’m sure these direct to video releases have probably gone relatively undetected.
That is a shame as there have been some excellent animated features many of which have featured my favorite since childhood, Batman.
The latest is “Gotham by Gaslight,” an animated adaptation of the 1989 graphic novel by Brian Augustyn and the legendary Mike Mignola, who would later go on and create Hellboy.
The conceit of the graphic novel was to move Bruce Wayne and Batman back to the 1890s at which time Batman found himself trying to defeat a murderer based on Jack the Ripper.
I will admit that at first I thought this was a little too “high concept” for my liking, but the story and animation quickly drew me in, especially since many of the characters were drawn to maintain part of the Mignola design sense.
Bruce Wayne is still a wealthy young man about town and Police Commissioner James Gordon as an outlaw vigilante deems Batman. The Gotham depicted is one plagued by crime with ill-lit streets and gangs of homeless children robbing passersby.
Batman received assistance from an unlikely source: vaudeville performer and feminist Selina Kyle. Batman fans will recognize that name as that of the Cat Woman, a longtime Batman foe and love interest. The character is well realized and works well in the narrative.
There are fond nods to both Sherlock Holmes, whom Bruce Wayne describes as his mentor and Harry Houdini, both appropriate for the 1890s.
I’ve been told the feature film does not follow the graphic novel’s plot and there is certainly a major surprise in the last quarter of the film.
The animation is acceptable, although not as lavish as I would have liked to have seen and the voice work hits the mark. The film is rated R for depictions of violence and language, although both are handled in a non-gratuitous manner.
Batman fans should enjoy “Gotham by Gaslight.”
On DVD: Frank Serpico
Batman may have been a fictional hero, but Frank Serpico was a real hero and this documentary not only presents his actual story, but presents what happened to him after his testimony assisted the investigations into the corruption of the New York City Police Department.
The subject of the hit 1973 film starring Al Pacino, based on the best-selling book by Peter Maas, Serpico’s name became synonymous with people willing to risk his or her own life to bring down corruption.
What this documentary does is to not only tell his life story, but to show what he has been doing since retiring from the police in 1973. What emerges is a man who is principled, brave and interested in living his life on his own terms. He clearly has a sense of perspective and humor about his life and events, but it’s also apparent he has not relaxed any on the ethics that prompted him to fight the corruption he saw around him.
Director Antonino D’Ambrosio is willing to push the envelope in his production. He has plenty of interviews with Serpico’s friends and supporters but he includes one interview that is both essential and painful. After a period of almost 50 years, Serpico sits down at a bar to talk with one of the officers who was with him the night he was shot in the face. The retired officer was clearly uncomfortable as he was among three officers who abandoned Serpico in answering Serpico’s questions about that night. One could see in this sequence how officers involved in corruption even 50 years later still could not admit their own wrong-doing. It’s a gutsy move for the film.
This is the story of a great American hero in my book and one that should be required viewing as a portrait in courage.