Oh man, I can feel the Earth trembling with people eager to call me an idiot for this, and if that is the case, so be it. But really, Sam Rockwell is EASILY one of the best actors of our generation, and if you want a good performance, no matter who the person is playing at the heart of it, you should want a good actor. Someone who consistently performs, no matter the part, and consistently sells you that this person they are playing could very well exist.
The person who could do that right now, without question, would be Sam Rockwell. Again, if you want to call out the height thing, just read the whole entry on the list about Colin Farrell. Height, when it comes to modern film, is not an issue. You believed in Hobbits, after all, and those actors were NOT three feet tall. (Side note: why was Tom Cruise not cast as a Hobbit? Just kidding, kind of).
At the heart of the matter here is Batman being cool and badass, and maybe a bit of a douche, but in the best way possible. The issue is a Batman who, at times, makes you wonder if he is, indeed, the good guy or just as insane as the bad guys. What you need is a Batman who, at the end of day, seems tired and beat down by what he does, but refuses to stop doing it, no matter the toll it takes on him.
That, my friends, would be Sam Rockwell.
Remember, Batman is a tortured soul, who has lost (and loses) everything he loves at some point, and the character who plays him needs to represent that to us. At NO POINT in Bale’s performance, did I see his Bruce Wayne as vulnerable. And I can guarantee to you Christopher Nolan had an issue with that, too, so he gave him a freaking cane, to LITERALLY make him seem vulnerable, because Bale could not convey that.
But we need an actor to play Batman who can convey that believable level of vulnerability. Who can show to us that this is just a mortal man, doing all this because it is right, and no one else has the courage to. But make no mistakes about it, as “larger than life” as Bruce Wayne is, he a brittle man, on the verge of falling apart at any moment, be it physically or mentally, and Sam Rockwell can portray that better than any actor right now.
Well, not better than Nic Cage, but I digress.