Act 2: Batman The Dark Knight

ACT TWO

Lau is left on the doorstep of Gotham MCU with a note, asking he be delivered to Gordon. Once in custody, Lau makes a deal with Rachel and Dent. He won’t disclose the location of the money, knowing as long as it remains a secret then no one can kill him, so instead offers the names of his “clients.” Dent realizes that if he has their names, he can charge them with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (in other words, a RICO offense). Just as Maroni and the Chechen are meeting at a restaurant, discussing hiring the Joker, Gordon walks in and surprisingly arrests the entire mob, all on racketeering and conspiracy charges. Gordon is joined by his assistant, Det. Stephens, and Commissioner Loeb in bringing the large group of inmates to court, before Judge Surrillo. Going through the court papers she comes across a Joker playing card, and shrugs, putting it aside [Two other things are revealed upon a closer examination of the papers: Gotham City is indicated as being in Gotham State, and furthermore the story is dated as taking place in July 2008, around the time of the film’s release]. Dent meets with the Mayor who reprimands him for such an insane arrest; however, Dent points out that while the bosses will make bail [indeed, it seems that the Chechen and Maroni have already gotten out by the time this scene is occurring], the majority will be forced to cut deals to avoid prison, and in any case, the streets will be cleaner for at least a little while. The Mayor hesitantly agrees, but again points out that a lot is riding on Dent’s legacy as Gotham’s White Knight. The meeting is interrupted by the arrival of a corpse hanging from the rooftop. It is one of the wannabe Batman we saw earlier, tied to a Joker playing card saying “Will the real Batman please stand up.” Over at Wayne Penthouse, Bruce and Alfred are chatting when Engel appears on TV to reveal the videotape found with the corpse. The imitator had been captured and apparently tortured by the Joker who sadistically laughs at him. To give the imitator credit where it is due, he is brave up to the end, calling the Joker “scum” to his face. The Joker announces to his shaky handheld camera that until the real Batman reveals himself, people will be murdered daily. Bruce is unsure how to deal with this turn of events: now Batman has been turned into part of the problem.

At the party that evening, Dent and Rachel arrive to a penthouse filled with the wealthy elite, and finally Bruce arrives with several supermodels as his dates. By now, despite his heroic actions and ambitions, Dent has begun to show signs of his “two-faced-ness” in his aggressive attitude, and even more so, seems uncomfortable and anti-social in the crowd. Bruce gives a short speech for his honoree and states “I believe in Harvey Dent” (another reference to the comics). Afterward, Bruce spends a quiet moment with Rachel, confiding in her his hope that soon Gotham will no longer need Batman and he may retire to be with her, but she correctly feels that this is all a pipe-dream and she cannot be asked to wait. To Bruce, Rachel is not so much a love interest as an icon of the life he hopes to have. Dent pulls her aside and begins to propose to her, but she is unsure; she also has feelings for Bruce, but doesn’t know if he will ever stop being Batman. This is interrupted as the film begins jumping between parallel plotlines. Three traces of fingerprints have been found on the Joker card on the corpse: Loeb’s, Surrillo’s, and Dent’s, three victims whose deaths would surely put a stop to the current trial. Gordon quickly tries to prevent the assassinations, but fails. Surrillo is killed in a car bomb while on her way to a safe house and Loeb is killed when taking a sip of whiskey that turns out to be acid, confirming that there must indeed be a mole at MCU. Wuertz is sent to the party to escort Dent to safety, but arrives held at gunpoint by the Joker and his thugs [Though as Wuertz’s true allegiance is revealed later, perhaps he was never actually overpowered]. As the Joker crashes the party and begins his mayhem, Bruce quickly knocks out Dent and hides him: again, Dent is Batman’s top priority at the moment. He also passes by a couple making out and enters a secret compartment, appearing to them to be a coward. Back outside, the Joker terrifies everyone, eventually beginning to harass Rachel, and tells her a story of his origin, considerably different than the one he told Gambol. It is heavily implied that the Joker has no real origin story, but just simply exists as a symbol; perhaps inventing origin stories at will to satisfy his own sadism. Eventually Batman arrives and confronts him and fights off the thugs. The Joker retaliates by dropping Rachel out the window and Batman jumps out after her. Falling hard, he is able to catch her and the two slam hard into a taxi, very much alive.

[One consistent criticism of the film that most people had, including myself, is the way this party fight is resolved. A damsel in distress being thrown out the window and Batman jumping out to rescue her isn’t exactly new ground; in fact it has a lot of resemblance to the climax of Tim Burton’s first film on the character. But secondly, and more notably, is the fact that the scene just ends, leaving the Joker and his thugs in the penthouse with the guests. It does seem odd that they would just leave without causing any more mayhem, but the original screenplay does not reveal anything more to the scene, other than an extra short scene of the Joker riding off in his car and telling his thugs that he will get Dent later. So, as clumsy as it may seem, the answer is: yes, the Joker just leaves the party and all the guests alone].

The next day, Gordon and Stephens debate how the prosecution can continue when Dent surprises them by walking in as determined as ever [What happened to Dent after Bruce knocked him out and hid him in the apartment? Did he come to in his own apartment later that night? We’ll never know]. Meanwhile, at the Bat-Bunker, Bruce shares his worries about the bizarre criminal with Alfred. The Joker is a terrorist, unlike any criminal force Batman has yet dealt with. The mob is responsible for setting him loose, yet Alfred correctly suggests that the mob was unaware of what they were doing and turned to a man they didn’t quite understand and neither does Bruce. Batman “crossed the line” long before the Joker did. Most cops work for paychecks and must follow rules and procedures. Thus most criminals can simply bribe them or avoid them or find ways around them. Because Batman follows no rules and only has the incentive of justice itself, he has been able to do things cops cannot do (such as capture Lau) and destroy the entire mob system of Gotham. But now the Joker has come along and done the exact same thing in reverse. Criminals are also expected to follow certain rules: normally their crimes involve money or revenge, and they can be stopped or intimidated. Maroni and the Chechen are both examples of men who aren’t so much evil as just greedy and exploitative. The Joker IS evil and an agent of chaos, making him a super-villain, and the anti-Batman. Alfred compares the situation to a jewel-thief he encountered in Burma who stole for sport rather than profit, and thus he could not be caught or bullied. “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

A lonely Batman stands atop a skyscraper, listening in to police transmissions. Eventually the Joker’s voice reports a crime scene. Batman arrives, along with Gordon and Ramirez, to see two corpses of anonymous men, whose surnames are Harvey and Dent. Ramirez shows her frustration with Batman and with Gordon for insisting on speaking with him alone. Batman retrieves a shattered bullet from the wall of the crime scene while Gordon soon discovers that the Joker has left a clue for his next victim in the form of a newspaper clipping: the Mayor. Over at Wayne Enterprises, Fox is confronted by the disgruntled Reese, who reveals that in continuing to look through the books, he has uncovered Batman’s identity. He reveals all he knows about the corporation funding Batman’s Tumbler and gadgets, as well as the R&D department working on a new government project, and finally attempts to blackmail the company. However, when Fox brings up Batman’s financial power and fighting ability, Reese wisely changes his mind and leaves the room.

Bruce has gone through an exaggeratedly-complex and meticulous effort to trace the bullet: he tests different kinds of bullets with sample bricks in the Bat-Bunker and using sonar is able to deduce what kind of bullet was used. He then uses Fox’s sonar to help visualize the bullet and find the fingerprint on it. Fox at this point questions Bruce about R&D being reassigned to a government project, but Bruce does not want to reveal too much. He then traces the fingerprint to a man named Melvin White who lives over the parade route that the mayor will be taking that day. He rides off the address. The parade is a funeral service for Commissioner Loeb [apparently Judge Surrillo is not important enough to get any kind of public memorial service] and is being heavily monitored by security on all sides in case of the Joker or any snipers. The Mayor begins his eulogy just as Bruce arrives at White’s apartment and discovers the honor guards from the ceremony are tied up and that a timer has just gone off, opening the shutters and distracting all security outside. Right at this moment, the “honor guards” in the ceremony, revealed to be the Joker and his men, open fire on the crowd. As usual, the Joker’s schemes are always puzzles outside the box; everyone is so concerned with how he will attack the ceremony, no one ever realizes he has managed to infiltrate the ceremony itself [This scene is notable in that it is the only time in the entire film we see the Joker without his clown makeup. It is also noteworthy that we never discover who Melvin White really is. It is possible that it is the Joker’s real identity, or that it is the name of one of his thugs whose apartment he used, or that it is someone else altogether, but the Joker simply used both his identity and apartment]. In the mayhem that follows, the crowd runs in wild panic and chaos, the Joker escapes, one of his goons goes down, the Mayor is protected, and Gordon is apparently killed. This is a fatal blow to all our characters and each one is pushed over the edge:

-Stephens must break the news to Gordon’s wife, who correctly guesses before he even says anything. She breaks down in sobs and blames the death on Batman, who listens solemnly. Later Stephens stands by the Bat-Signal, but it is clear Batman will not answer.

-Batman traces Maroni to a local nightclub with his mistress. He fights his way through bodyguards, far more violent and aggressively than normal, and captures Maroni. He attempts to torture Maroni by dropping him off a building, low enough so that the fall will not kill him but will fracture his legs. However, Maroni honestly knows nothing about the Joker or how to call him off, and even seems somewhat remorseful of having turned to him. The only option truly is for Batman to turn himself in.

-Dent carries the fallen goon to an ambulance, but rather than wait for the paramedic, drives off with him. Identically to Batman, he attempts to torture the goon, albeit mentally, by flipping his coin, asserting he will kill him if it comes up “tails.” Here, Dent is truly showing “the ugly side of his face.” Make no mistake about it; for all his idealism, here is a man who could truly be a villain under the right circumstances. And while we later find out that the coin is two-headed and so he is not seriously planning to murder the goon, this scene still shows that the idea of abandoning justice and leaving life and death up to chance has occurred to him. The goon is terrified but is unable to reveal anything. Eventually Batman arrives and reveals that the goon is a schizophrenic from Arkham who knows nothing.

[Although some criticized the film for having a supposed conservative agenda, this is untrue. While both Batman and Dent are both shown torturing captives to get information, both instances are shown as failures and the torture ends up revealing nothing.]

Batman is disgusted by how low both he and Dent have sunk, and realizes he cannot continue this way. He will, as Rachel said earlier, end up becoming like Caesar; the heinous acts that the Joker is pushing him to do, even if they are for the greater good, are turning Batman into a villain. Furthermore, the Joker is doing the same thing to Dent, his doppelganger. He again stresses the importance of Dent having a clean and honorable legacy so that he may be the White Knight. With no other alternative, Batman asks Dent to call a press conference where he will turn himself in. That night, he chats with Rachel, who has been urged by Dent to stay at his penthouse as the only safe haven in Gotham. Bruce reflects that turning himself in is in a sense a way of reaching his ultimate goal of retiring and letting Dent be his legitimate successor; yet ironically, being in jail will keep him from being with Rachel, the person he wanted to retire for. Rachel gives him a hesitant kiss, but is unsure if she wants the responsibility of being his hope for a normal life. The next morning, Bruce chats with Alfred, who advises against this. He reminds Bruce that Batman’s role is to be an outcast rather than a hero. He should be feared and hated by the people if it that’s what it takes to mean he is doing the right thing. This sets up the idea that Batman stands for something that is “beyond heroism.” However, Bruce insists that he cannot allow people to die and he has indeed reached his limits. Together they burn all the paperwork and evidence of the Batman campaign, trying to eliminate anything that would lead back to Fox or Rachel, then leave the bunker, preparing to face the music.

[Of course, Bruce is currently unaware of Coleman Reese. If Bruce had indeed turned himself in, Reese may have stepped forward with his evidence and revealed Fox’s involvement. Also, I am curious if Bruce would really have let Alfred go to jail with him. Most likely he would have used as much of his power as he could to make sure Alfred got off lightly.]

At the press conference, Dent stands before an angry and frightened crowd who demand Batman show himself (clearly they have come to blame Batman for the Joker’s crimes). Dent again stresses that they need to have faith in the good Batman is doing and that “the dawn is coming.” He also points out that Gotham’s citizens were more than happy to let Batman clean their streets and do their dirty work, and only now after the Joker’s terrorism are they asking him to pay for it. However, as the crowd still demands Batman, Dent agrees to have him arrested…and turns himself in. The crowd is shocked at Dent’s “confession” and begins to show signs of remorse. Perhaps it dawns on them that Batman was someone who really cared about their well-being, and they have just tossed him away. Bruce simply stands in shock and does nothing. Back at the penthouse, Rachel confronts Alfred about this turn of events. Though Alfred is himself surprised, he again states that he feels Batman should not be sacrificed for the whims of a terrorist. By remaining silent, Bruce is allowing Dent to get the credit of heroism while he himself is in the shadows; again, what Batman does goes “beyond heroism.” However, Rachel simply interprets Bruce’s actions as cowardice and a refusal to let go of being Batman, and so she leaves a note for Bruce with Alfred, and says her final goodbye to the old butler [Bruce’s inaction does come as a bit of a surprise, but we as the audience know that it is not due to cowardice at all; Bruce was perfectly willing to turn himself in. Perhaps we can conclude that once Dent turned himself in, Bruce quickly realized that to step forward would have just confused the situation. He also no doubt correctly realized that Dent’s ultimate goal was to lure out the Joker for capture, and that he as the real Batman would be needed in this]. Rachel meets Dent at his holding cell where he admits he has planned this to set himself up as bait for the Joker. As they are led through the building by cops, we see Stephens applauding at what he believes is Batman’s capture. Rachel tries as hard as she can to talk him out of it, pointing out Batman’s consistent failure against capturing the Joker, but he does not listen and simply flips his lucky coin, claiming to use the toss as the deciding factor. Rachel catches it and finally learns that it has always been a two-headed coin. She watches as Dent is led into an armored truck and taken off to central holding.

[We don’t see what happens to Rachel next, but presumably it is at this point that she is given a ride by Ramirez. The revelation that Dent’s coin is two-headed completely alters much of our perception of the character. It reveals that, despite being constantly told he is leaving major decisions to chance, he actually leaves nothing to chance. Everything in his life is planned out so that the outcome will always be in his favor. This is why he is such a diligent lawyer and has been so successful: every time he gambles, he can only win. This makes him the perfect symbol of order and balance…but that’s about to change.]

The armored truck is led by several police cruisers through Gotham. As with the parade, the police go to every possible measure they can to prevent an attack, but the Joker will trick them all by thinking outside the box. A burning fire truck forces the procession of cop cars to take a detour down an exit ramp where they are easy targets. A trash compactor arrives and begins knocking the squad cars off the road. Just as the SWAT team begins to prepare for backup, they too are knocked off into the river by a mysterious truck. An S on the side of the mysterious truck turns the word Laughter into Slaughter. The Joker reveals himself inside the truck and begins shooting at the armored truck, first with a regular handgun, and then with an RPG. Eventually the real Batman arrives in the Tumbler, jetting down the parkway and successfully putting the trash compactor out of commission. Just as the Joker shoot another RPG, the Tumbler comes riding up and “takes a bullet” for the armored truck, which leads it to crash. The armored truck manages to escape, the mysterious truck, now with the Joker in the driver’s seat, chases after it, and Batman comes flying out of the Tumbler on his Bat-Pod, leaving the car to self-destruct behind him. Now out in the open air, the Joker has his goons knock out a police chopper, which lands right in the middle of the street, but the armored car manages to survive. Meanwhile Batman cruises on his Bat-Pod through the streets, destroying cars and property, and even taking a detour through an indoor mall in a scene reminiscent of The Blues Brothers [Normally I hate it when action movies have heroes that randomly destroy public property without concern for others simply for the sake of an action scene, as is common in Michael Bay films. However, here it can be explained as being part of the recklessness Batman has to deal with, and thus continuing the theme that the Joker is bringing out the worst in him]. Eventually, he is able to shoot his cables at the mysterious truck, causing it to flip over. The Joker emerges from the wreckage and stands tall, playing a game of chicken with Batman on his Bat-Pod. Sure enough, Batman swerves at the last minute, crashing and being knocked unconscious. His refusal to kill his enemies has literally brought him down. Before the Joker can execute him, the SWAT team has descended upon him…led by Gordon! Gordon reveals he staged his death in order to protect his family, though it is left unclear how many people were aware of his deception [Of course no serious Batman fan could possibly have thought Gordon was really dead. Jim Gordon is a major character in the Batman canon and to kill him off so early in Batman’s career, before he’s even been made commissioner, would have been too heavy a departure]. Meanwhile, the Joker and his cronies from the truck are captured and taken in. Although he did intend to kill Batman, the fact that he chose to do it in the way he did, when the situation would be so heavily monitored by cops, suggest that the Joker had planned all along on getting caught. Dent is released from the armored car and, as it is now pretty obvious to every witness present that he is not the real Batman, he is released. He is applauded, as popular as ever, and led to a car.

[And so it now seems that we are at the polar opposite of where we were 24 hours earlier in the story: the Joker is caught, Gordon is alive and well, Dent is a hero, and Batman is off the hook with his secret identity in tact. But things are just too good to be true. As Dent gets in the car, one can see that Wuertz is the driver and that Ramirez gives him a signal. As they drive off, the camera closes in subtly on Ramirez’s guilty face].

At MCU, Gordon and his men use every possible safety precaution in dealing with their precious arrest, and as usual, this only foreshadows how much the Joker will inevitably outsmart them all. With no fingerprints on record or any form of identification, the Joker appears to have no secret identity; he is not a civilian, he is simply the Joker. The Mayor congratulates Gordon on his capture, promotes him to commissioner, and sends him home, where he is affectionately slapped by his wife. However, Gordon is given only a few minutes to reveal to kids he is alive before being called back in. He meets with the Joker in an interrogation room and questions him about Dent’s disappearance, and the Joker playfully reveals that perhaps Gordon’s unit is not as trustworthy as thought. “Does it depress you to know just how alone you really are?” he says gleefully. Seeing this is getting him nowhere, Gordon leaves the room and Batman, whose magical powers at entering rooms have become quite proficient, takes over and beats the Joker savagely. Batman displays a level of aggressive violence never seen before in the character, surpassing even his torture of Maroni. It is again a sign that, like Caesar, being a vigilante without rules will lead to him being a villain himself. However, the Joker appears to view Batman as his colleague and does not wish to kill him (even though he was trying pretty hard in the previous scene, but then again, maybe the Joker doesn’t really need a consistent plan). He predicts that the system of cops vs. mobsters is over and a period of pure chaos and disorder is starting. Similar to Satan in the Book of Job, he bets with Batman that he can show him the average man is basically savage and evil, like him. Throughout this scene, his makeup has begun to fade and he is seen for the first time without gloves, giving him a certain vulnerability. Growing restless and needing to know Dent’s location, Batman continues to beat up the Joker, until it is progressively revealed that Rachel has been kidnapped as well and only one of the two will be saved. The Joker inflicts one of his trademark moral dilemmas on him: Batman’s one rule is that he never kills anyone, yet because he can only save one, he is forced to have to indirectly murder the other. He continues to beat up the Joker, but as the Joker is a masochist who doesn’t fear death, he laughs and explains “You have nothing you can threaten me with.” Finally, he reveals the two addresses, and Batman runs off to save Rachel while Gordon and his unit head to find Dent [Despite being able to magically appear inside rooms, Batman still needs to run out of the room when there is an emergency. In any case, this scene again shows the folly of torturing prisoners, as physically abusing the Joker did not ultimately help Batman or give him information he wouldn’t have gotten anyway].

The film frantically cuts back and forth between about four different scenes. Dent is revealed to be tied up in a basement apartment filled with diesel fuel while Rachel is tied in a similar warehouse. Both are connected via speaker-phone and try to talk each other through this, but not before Dent accidentally trips the chair backwards and gets the left half of his face covered in gasoline. Meanwhile, the Joker has been left in the interrogation room alone with Stephens [Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have just put him in a padded cell or even a straight jacket? I realize Gordon and his men left in a hurry and so didn’t have much time to think what to do with the prisoner, but if Stephens is still in charge, surely he could have come up with somewhere better to keep him]. The Joker successfully manipulates Stephens into giving him a beating, overpowers him, and uses his hostage as leverage to make a phone call, which sets off the cell phone-bomb inside one of his henchmen. The explosion knocks out the remaining force. The Joker then lets Lau out of his cell and escapes with his prey. Back at the warehouse, Rachel tells Dent she loves him and finally answers his proposal with a yes, just as Batman arrives at his destination to discover the Joker’s hideous prank: the addresses were switched and he has instead arrived at Dent’s location. Hence the Joker not only forced Batman to choose between these two captives, but to then lose the one he chose. Regardless, Batman still rescues Dent, who all the while screams in outrage that Rachel should be saved, not he. The look on Rachel’s face, thinking Batman has chosen Dent over her, and accepting her death will occur within seconds, is truly heartbreaking. Gordon arrives outside, but it is too late. Both buildings explode, the half of Dent’s face covered in fuel is quickly burned away, and Rachel Dawes is killed.

[And so things are now at their polar opposite once more: the Joker, having clearly wanted to get caught all along so he could kidnap Lau, is again on the loose, Dent has been incapacitated, the case for his entire prosecution has fallen apart, and Bruce’s love and icon of a possible stable future has been killed. This is a crushing blow to everyone, and Batman has truly failed.]