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The story opens with a man committing suicide by jumping out of an office building. A pair of detectives arrive to investigate the scene. However, it is not the man who went “down” who merits an investigation. It is the five people who are going up — on an elevator, that is.

Shortly after the suicide, five strangers enter an elevator in a nearby building, when it suddenly breaks down. The three men and two women are now stuck and immediately dislike each other and begin arguing. One awkwardly sings a tune to liven up the mood which only annoys the other four.

Unfortunately, the elevator passengers aren’t just annoying to one another. These mean and unlikable five are also annoying to the viewer stuck watching them. Thankfully, after these lame characters are introduced, momentum is quickly regained. 

Two security guards begin to investigate the stuck elevator and ask the building’s maintenance man to help out. But the maintenance man faces difficulty fixing the elevator because a mysterious force is working to keep the doors closed. As one of the security guards watches a video feed, an evil face suddenly appears onscreen. Being a religious man, the guard soon suspects that the Devil himself is responsible for the events of that day, including the suicide.

As the story rolls on, the five face an unknown enemy among them. The lights go out, someone’s scratched and soon other mysterious attacks occur in this small, stifling space. As one of the film’s trailers points out, one of these five isn’t who they pretend to be.

As the characters question each other’s motives, the movie builds up some real suspense. From the face of the devil appearing to the elevator lights turning on and off, events create increased tension as the stakes are raised and people start dying. Like Agatha Christie’s novel “And Then There Were None,” the story eliminates suspects until the end when the mystery is solved as to who or what is on the attack.

Unfortunately, things end on a weak note, a real letdown for anyone hoping for an ending that was on par with what came before. However, the movie’s strengths are enough to recommend it.

There is, obviously, some overlap: Not all art entertains (though some does); not all entertainment is art (though some is).  At bottom, it seems, the difference is one of intent – the artist seeks to connect us with larger meanings, larger truths about the world, about ourselves.  The primary focus of art is therefore to illuminate, with any entertainment had in the process merely a bonus.

The goal of the entertainer, on the other hand, is perhaps less sublime, though no less worthy – to distract, to tickle, to stimulate the fancy.  Entertainment is at bottom diversion, and I say this without a trace of disdain – often it is the quality and quantity of our diversions which makes the difference between a joyful life and a merely bearable one.

One year ago this weekend, a beating black heart pulsed in summer’s midst: The Dark Knight.  It was big-budget, comic book based franchise movie, made for popcorn eaters seeking suitable summer diversion.  And It delivered beyond the filmmakers wildest expectations – the masses were so entertained that they lifted it up into the box office stratosphere in grateful recompense.

And yet…

There was something different about The Dark Knight, something which separated it from its innumerable costume-wearing, crime-fighting brethren.  Something weighty, a gravity which distorted its appearance in interesting ways.  For instance, more of the story of The Dark Knight takes place during the day than in any previous Batman film.  And yet no comic book movie was ever so black and bleak; it seems to take place in an unending polar night, not some sunny Chicago day.

Even common film tropes are distorted by this gravity, and bend backwards in on themselves: Lieutenant James Gordon is shot and killed…only to later reappear, his ‘death’ having been an elaborate head-fake for the benefit the film’s villains…and us.  Lots of movies have this type of false death.  The difference?  We believe Gordon’s death; the film unfolds in such a manner as to make clear that no one is safe, a suspicion confirmed when, only a short while later, Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend, and love interest to both Wayne and Harvey Dent, is blown to bits in front of our eyes.  This combination of reassurance and disaster, of sigh-of-relief then sucker punch, makes clear – there are no rules in this film.

Which, of course, is exactly how the Joker would want it.  The only sensible way to live in this world, the Joker tells a demoralized and disfigured Harvey Dent, is without rules.  Why would this movie, his movie, be any different?

In that same scene, the Joker puts a loaded gun into Harvey’s hand, then puts his own head to the barrel as he confesses to Dent “I’m an agent of chaos.”  It was in that moment that I realized what Chris Nolan was up to: This isn’t the Joker – it’s the Devil.

Heath Ledger’s villain is not the macabre clown who battled Batman on the pages of the D.C. comics for most of the 20th century.  He is the serpent from the Old Testament who has battled God for most of eternity.   The genius of The Dark Knight is to give this eternal adversary a form well suited for our post 9-11 world – the man who blows up buildings and wages war on civilization itself.

Satan as Osama – that is Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the heart of The Dark Knight.  By entangling our most ancient and mythic tormentor with our most recent real life villain, The Dark Knight simultaneously plays on our most primal and frightening suspicions: 1) That anyone can become a villain (wasn’t Lucifer the light-bearing angel most favored by God?  Wasn’t Dent the most virtuous of public servants?), and 2) that the veneer of civilization is paper thin, and no match for even one man with bullets and gasoline and the will to use them.

By daring to step into those pooling shadows, The Dark Knight attains something higher than mere diversion.  Dare I say it?

Art.

Secularists don’t know that simple fact about faith and feel threatened by their own ignorance, which quickly spirals into enmity as a defense against what they deeply fear is the truth. After all, Pride is what made the Devil. And the Devil’s main goal is your total separation from any kind of relationship with God, which can easily be described as anxiety, loneliness, fear, panic attacks, suicide…anything to get you away from sincerely trying to follow God. In other words, people of faith go to church while secularists go to therapy.  

To quote C.S. Lewis, my favorite atheist convert, “Christianity has not been tried and found false — it’s been tried and found too difficult.”

Indeed.

Secularists throw their hands up and give in to “humanity” instantly, under the guise that urges and desires must be completely natural (which they are) and are therefore just fine to enjoy with wild abandon (which they are not). They do not understand that resisting is the real road to that spiritual Utopia we’re always striving for.

We Christians know all to well that we are human and that sin drives a wedge between us and God. No you’re not “going straight to hell” because you happen to sit in a hotel room with a steady diet of hookers and drugs between movie shoots. Although you may wind up in jail at the hands of your fellow Man, what that behavior will really do is gently and pleasurably separate you from knowing God. 

By “separate” I mean you will slowly not be able to tolerate anyone you meet of faith (even if they’ve never bothered you) and you will soon find yourself shaking your fist at organized religion as the root of all evil. Your mind will become incapable of accepting that there is anything bigger than your own self and all the other “selfs” you socialize with. You will be, quite literally, out on a limb with no real friends and sooner or later you will realize that, either to your great horror or sinister joy. Welcome to free will.  

Yet, even if Christ were not God, the urgency and hatred that secularists use to deny there’s any moral truth to His plainly obvious teaching of what it means to be good, is evidence enough that we’re dealing a wholly evil mindset. This isn’t Atheism. This is Devilism. 

The precise goal of a Devilish society is to get as many people away from God as possible through a steady diet of media distractions and stories and role models all meant to edify their Devilish position while tearing down ours. It’s completely harmless to us if others in society are not up for what Christianity asks of its faithful, but where we draw the line is the distorted representation of faithful people in our pop culture entertainment, a culture dominated by secularist ideals and themes.  

Look, If you want to know where all the real sinners are, go to church. You’ll see them on their knees begging for forgiveness and admitting they cherished something else in their hearts over God. But if you want to know where the real Devils are, go to Hollywood where the path to hell is paved in gold.