The Dark Knight

***The Dark Knight*** is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is the second part of Nolan's *Batman* film series and a sequel to 2005's *Batman Begins*, starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger,Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gylenhaal and Morgan Freeman. With the help of police lieutenant James Gordon (Oldman) and newly-electeddistrict attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart), Batman (Bale) raises the stakes on his war on crime by setting out to dismantle the remaining mafia groups that plague the streets. The partnership proves effective, until the mob draw Batman into combat with stopping a criminal lunatic known as "the Joker" (Ledger) from unleashing a reign of chaos that would plunge Gotham Cityinto becoming an anarchy.

Nolan's inspiration for the film was the Joker's comic book debut in 1940, the 1988 graphic novel *The Killing Joke*, and the 1996 series *The Long Halloween*, which retold Two-Face's origin. The nickname "the Dark Knight" was first applied to Batman in *Batman* #1 (1940), in a story written by Bill Finger.[4][5] *The Dark Knight* was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Nolan used IMAX 70 mm film cameras to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. On January 22, 2008, some months after he had completed filming on *The Dark Knight* and six months before the film's release, Heath Ledger died from a toxic combination of prescription drugs, leading to intense attention from the press and movie-going public. Warner Bros. initially created a viral marketing campaign for*The Dark Knight*, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Ledger as the Joker.

A co-production of the United States and the United Kingdom, *The Dark Knight* was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Considered by film critics to be one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best superhero films ever,[6][7] the film received highly positive reviews and set numerous records during its theatrical run.[8] *The Dark Knight* appeared on more critics' top ten lists (287) than any other film of 2008 with the exception of *WALL-E*, and more critics (77) named *The Dark Knight* the best film of 2008 than any other film released that year.[9] With over $1 billion in revenue worldwide, it is the 19th-highest-grossing film of all time, unadjusted for inflation.[10] The film received eight Academy Award nominations; it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor.[11]*The Dark Knight Rises*, the final film in the trilogy, was released on July 20, 2012.

## Plot

Nine months after the events of the first film, organized crime has become the most irritating problem in Gotham City, Batman (Christian Bale) and Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) decide to include new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) in their plan to eradicate the mob organizing it. Although Dent is dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gylenhaal), Bruce Wayne is impressed with his idealism and offers to throw him a fundraiser.

Meanwhile, mob leaders Sal Maroni (Eric Roberts), Gambol (Michael Jai White), and The Chechen (Ritchie Coster) hold avideoconference with Chinese accountant Lau (Chin Han), who has hidden their funds from Gordon, Dent and Batman and fled to Hong Kong. A criminal clown called the Joker (Heath Ledger), who has recently stolen a stack of the funds from one of the local banks, then interrupts the meeting, warning that Batman is unhindered by jurisdiction. He offers to kill Batman for half their money, but the mob bosses refuse, and Gambol puts a bounty on him. As a result, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his men. His prediction is proven correct, however, when Batman captures Lau and delivers him back to Gotham to testify against the mob.

The Joker announces that people will die each day unless Batman reveals his identity, first killing Police CommissionerGillian B. Loeb (Colin McFarlane) and the judge presiding over the mob trials. He also targets Dent at the fundraiser, but Bruce hides Dent and suits up to stop the party-crashing while Rachel stalls the Joker. During the fight, the Joker tosses Rachel out the window, so instead of going after him, Batman saves her and ensures her that Dent is alright.

The next night, Batman and Gordon investigate the Joker's murder of two men who shared Dent's name as surnames and found that his next target would be Mayor Anthony Garcia, who would be hosting Loeb's funeral in the morning. The Joker and his cronies, disguised as the funeral's honor guards, aim their guns for their assassination on Garcia at the last minute, but Gordon foils it, apparently sacrificing himself in the process. Bruce plans to reveal his identity, but Dent instead names himself as Batman to protect the truth. Dent is taken into protective custody and pursued by the Joker across the city; Batman rushes to Dent's aid. Gordon, who faked his death, helps apprehend the Joker and is promoted to Commissioner.

Later that night, Dent and Rachel disappear. Batman interrogates the Joker and discovers that Dent and Rachel are held in two separate buildings filled with explosives. The Joker reveals their locations, and Batman goes to Rachel's, only to realize that the Joker has tricked him into finding Dent moments before both buildings explode, killing Rachel and scarring half of Dent's face. The Joker detonates a bomb in the police station and escapes with Lau.

The next morning, Coleman Reese (Joshua Harto), an accountant at Wayne Enterprises who deduces Batman's true identity, plans to reveal it on TV. The Joker kills Lau and The Chechen, then threatens to bomb a hospital unless Reese is killed. Gordon and Bruce protect Reese, who changes his mind. The Joker visits Dent in the hospital and convinces him to seek revenge. The Joker then blows up the hospital and escapes with hostages.

Dent, now going by a long-time nickname, "Two-Face", starts to go after people responsible for Rachel's death, deciding their fates by flipping a coin. First, he kills a cop who had helped kidnap him, and then Maroni after interrogating the crime boss to exposing the identity of Rachel's kidnapper. The Joker, meanwhile, rigs two ferries with explosives to escalate chaos; one ferry is full of citizens, the other full of prison inmates and guards. He then gives the passengers of each ferry the choice to blow the other up before midnight — otherwise, both ferries will explode. The passengers ultimately refuse, however.

Batman asks reluctant Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) to use a city-wide tracking prototype device to find the Joker; Fox agrees, but says he will resign immediately afterward. The Joker dresses up hostages as his men, luring Gordon's SWATteam to strike them. Batman fights off the SWAT team and the Joker's men, then rescues the hostages. Batman apprehends the Joker and disarms him of the detonator for both ferries, but the Joker gloats that he has won, as Gotham will lose hope once Dent's rampage becomes public. The SWAT team arrives to take the Joker into custody.

Two-Face lures Gordon to the building where Rachel died and holds Gordon's family hostage. Batman confronts Two-Face, who judges the fates of himself, Batman, and Gordon's son (Nathan Gamble) with three coin flips. He shoots Batman, spares himself, then flips again to determine the boy's fate. Batman, who is wearing body armor, tackles Two-Face off the building, killing him and saving the boy.[12] Batman then convinces Gordon to frame him for the murders so that Harvey Dent will remain a symbol of hope for the city. Gordon destroys the Bat-Signal and launches a manhunt for the Batman. Bruce's butler Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) burns a letter written by Rachel to Bruce announcing her engagement to Dent, and Fox watches the signal tracker self-destruct.

## Cast

* Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman:

A billionaire socialite who dedicates himself to protecting Gotham City from the criminal underworld as a bat-like vigilante at night. Bale said he was confident in his choice to return in the role because of the positive response to his portrayal in *Batman Begins*.[13] He continued training in the Keysi Fighting Method and performed many of his own stunts,[13][14] but did not gain as much muscle as in the previous film because the new Batsuit allowed him to move with greater agility.[15] Bale described Batman's dilemma as whether "[his crusade is] something that has an end. Can he quit and have an ordinary life? The kind of manic intensity someone has to have to maintain the passion and the anger that they felt as a child, takes an effort after a while, to keep doing that. At some point, you have to exorcise your demons."[16] He added, "Now you have not just a young man in pain attempting to find some kind of an answer, you have somebody who actually has power, who is burdened by that power, and is having to recognize the difference between attaining that power and holding on to it."[17] Bale felt Batman's personality had been strongly established in the first film, so it was unlikely his character would be overshadowed by the villains, stating: "I have no problem with competing with someone else. And that's going to make a better movie."[18]
* Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth:

Bruce's trusted butler and confidant. His supply of useful advice to Bruce and his likeness as a father figure has led to him being labeled "Batman's batman".[19][20]
* Heath Ledger as the Joker:

A maniacal criminal mastermind portraying himself as an "agent of chaos", who rises to dominant power by terrorizing Gotham and plunging it into anarchy. Before Ledger was confirmed for the role in July 2006, Paul Bettany,[21] Lachy Hulme,[22] Adrien Brody,[23] Steve Carell,[24] and Robin Williams[25] publicly expressed interest in it. However, Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past (including initially approaching Ledger for the role of Batman in *Batman Begins*, but had been unable to do so), and was agreeable to Ledger's chaotic interpretation of the character.[26] When Ledger saw *Batman Begins*, he had realized a way to make the character work that was consistent with the film's tone:[27] he described his Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zeroempathy."[28] Throughout the film, the Joker states his desire to upset social order through crime, and comes to define himself by his conflict with Batman. To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice, and personality, and kept a diary, in which he recorded the Joker's thoughts and feelings.[18][29] While he initially found it difficult, Ledger eventually generated a voice unlike Jack Nicholson's character in Tim Burton's 1989 *Batman* film.[28][29] He was also given *Batman: The Killing Joke* and *Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth,* which he "really tried to read and put it down."[27] Ledger also cited *A Clockwork Orange* andSid Vicious as "a very early starting point for Christian [Bale] and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether."[30][31] "There's a bit of everything in him. There's nothing that consistent," Ledger said, and added, "There are a few more surprises to him."[30] Ledger was allowed to shoot and mostly direct the videos the Joker sends out as warnings. Each take Ledger made was different from the last. Nolan was impressed enough with the first video shoot that he chose to not be present when Ledger shot the video with a kidnapped reporter (Anthony Michael Hall).[32] On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming *The Dark Knight*, Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose, leading to intense press attention and memorial tributes. "It was tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day [during editing]," Nolan recalled. "But the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish."[31] All of Ledger's scenes appear as he completed them in the filming; in editing the film, Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously.[33] Nolan has dedicated the film in part to Ledger's memory.[34][35]
* Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon:

A lieutenant in the Gotham City Police Department and one of the city's few honest police officers, who forms a tenuous, unofficial alliance with Batman and Dent and is given the position of Police Commissioner by the city's mayor following the recent commissioner's assassination. Oldman described his character as "incorruptible, virtuous, strong, heroic, but understated."[36] Nolan explained that "*The Long Halloween* has a great, triangular relationship between Harvey Dent and Gordon and Batman, and that's something we very much drew from."[37] Oldman added that "Gordon has a great deal of admiration for him at the end, but [Batman] is more than ever now the dark knight, the outsider. I'm intrigued now to see: If there is a third one, what he's going to do?"[37] On the possibility of another sequel, he said that "returning to [the role] is not dependent on whether the role was bigger than the one before."[38]
* Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face:

A Gotham district attorney hailed as the city's "White Knight", whose battle with the criminal underworld leaves him with mental illnesses, scarring him into disfigured murderer with a split-personality bent on revenge.[39][40] Nolan and David S. Goyer had originally considered using Dent in *Batman Begins*, but they replaced him with the new character Rachel Dawes when they realized they "couldn't do him justice."[41] Before Eckhart was cast in February 2007, Liev Schreiber,[42] Josh Lucas,[43] and Ryan Phillippe[44] had expressed interest in the role,[45] while Mark Ruffaloauditioned.[46] Hugh Jackman was also considered for the part. Nolan chose Eckhart, whom he had considered for the lead role in *Memento*, citing his "extraordinary" ability as an actor, his embodiment of "that kind of chiselled, American hero quality" projected by Robert Redford, and his subtextual "edge."[47] Eckhart was "interested in good guys gone wrong," and had played corrupt men in films such as *The Black Dahlia*, *Thank You for Smoking*, and *In the Company of Men*. Whereas Two-Face is depicted as a crime boss in most characterizations, Nolan chose to portray him as a twisted vigilante to emphasize his role as Batman's counterpart. Eckhart explained, "[He] is still true to himself. He's a crime fighter, he's not killing good people. He's not a bad guy, not purely."[39][40] For Dent, Eckhart "kept on thinking about the Kennedys," particularly Robert F. Kennedy, who was "idealistic, held a grudge and took on the Mob." He had his hair lightened and styled to make him appear more dashing. Nolan told Eckhart to not make Dent's Two-Face persona "jokey with slurping sounds or ticks."[48]
* Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes:

The Gotham assistant district attorney and Wayne's childhood friend, who tells Wayne that if he ever decided to stop being Batman, they would be together. She is one of the few people to know Batman's identity. Gyllenhaal took over the role from Katie Holmes, who played the part in *Batman Begins*. In August 2005, Holmes was reportedly planning to reprise the role,[49] but she eventually turned it down to do *Mad Money* with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah.[50] By March 2007, Gyllenhaal was in "final talks" for the part.[51] Gyllenhaal has acknowledged her character is a damsel in distress to an extent, but says Nolan sought ways to empower her character, so "Rachel's really clear about what's important to her and unwilling to compromise her morals, which made a nice change" from the many conflicted characters whom she has previously portrayed.[52]
* Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox:

The recently promoted chief executive officer of Wayne Enterprises who, now fully aware of his employer's double life, serves more directly as Bruce's armorer in addition to his corporate duties.[53]
* Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni:

A gangster who has taken over Carmine Falcone's mob. Bob Hoskins and James Gandolfini auditioned for the role.[54]
* Chin Han as Lau:

A Chinese accountant who handles the mob's money.
* Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb:

The Police Commissioner of Gotham until his murder at the hands of the Joker.[55]
The film's supporting protagonists include Nestor Carbonell as Mayor Anthony Garcia, Keith Szarabajka as Detective Gerard Stephens, an honest cop in Gordon's unit, Monique Gabriela Curnen and Ron Dean as Detectives Anna Ramirez and Michael Wuertz, two corrupt cops in Gordon's unit and involved in the mob who betray Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes to the Joker. (Ramirez is drawn as a somewhat sympathetic character, however; she only started working for the mob because she was desperate to afford to her mother's hospital bills). The cast also included Anthony Michael Hall as Gotham Cable News reporter Mike Engel, Nydia Rodriguez Terracina as Judge Janet Surrillo, Joshua Harto as Coleman Reese, a Wayne Enterprises lawyer who seduces Wayne's persona of Batman from Fox and plans to reveal it to Gotham until the Joker threatens his life, Melinda McGraw and Nathan Gamble as Gordon's wife and son, and Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr.as a prison inmate on one of the bomb-rigged ferries. The film's supporting villains include Michael Jai White and Ritchie Coster as mob bosses Gambol and The Chechen, respectively. William Fichtner played the Gotham National Bank manager. David Banner originally auditioned for the role of Gambol.[56] Cillian Murphy returns in a cameo as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow, who is apprehended early on in the film by Batman.[57]

Musician Dwight Yoakam was approached for the roles of either the manager or a corrupt cop, but he chose to focus on his album *Dwight Sings Buck*.[58] Another cameo was made by United States Senator Patrick Leahy, a fan of *Batman*comics who was previously an extra in the 1997 film *Batman & Robin* and also was a guest voice actor on *Batman: The Animated Series*. Leahy appears as a guest who defies the Joker when he and his henchmen attack Bruce's fundraiser, saying "We are not intimidated by thugs."[59] Matt Skiba, lead singer of Chicago punk band Alkaline Trio, made a small appearance in the movie.[60]