Was he mentioned? I honestly don't remember if he was.

At the very, very end. They make a reference to, I think, whatever the Joker was doing when Bats first met him in the comics. They may have even shown his calling card.

Oh hell yeah they did.

I guess Jack Nicholson has ruined me for the Joker (as in, when I was 15 I thought he was great. As I've learned more about the Joker and what he's really capable of - I've realized Jack was crap).

Really? I don't like very much about the Burton Batman movies, but I adore Nicholson as Joker. He's just perfectly batshit insane with enough homicidal intelligence to be scary.

I'm now trying to cast Arkham Asylum in my head.

I'm now trying to cast Arkham Asylum in my head.

Heh, that's what I'm doing with THE KILLING JOKE, although the cast for that would be smaller (and less outrageous).

It's Syriana with pills instead of oil.

Very much so. Although The Constant Gardener is conventionally structured, with a single protagonist, and as a result I got to liking him a great deal. And of course, pills, while a big industry, aren't nearly the entrenched capitalist disaster oil is. One got the sense from Gardener that a scandal would erupt, afterward but in Syriana it was sort of like, "Yeah, saw that one coming; what else is new?"

One got the sense from Gardener that a scandal would erupt, afterward but in Syriana it was sort of like, "Yeah, saw that one coming; what else is new?"

Yeah. Me, too.

I loved Ralph in CG--the personal story and the mystery of what happened made it a lot more compelling for me.

I'm trying to remember what I've seen the lawyer-cousin in before.

I liked Constant Gardener a lot, too, but the end seemed arbitrary.

I liked The Constant Gardener, but I was very tired and got lost during the last third or so. I think I fell asleep and missed important things and I didn't understand the ending at all.

I was awake the whole time and didn't understand the necessity or logic behind the end.

Which part of the ending? It was somewhat different from the book, and I'm blurring them both. I read the book just before the movie came out, and kept checking with the casting. As a result, I can't always tell what imagery I created in my head, and what was onscreen.

I couldn't tell exactly what was happening at the very end, ita, but Ralph Fiennes was at some place holding a gun, and he weirdly sounded like he was going to kill himself, and then some natives or evil conspiracy people were coming after him, and fade to credits.