The Dark Knight is a 2008 American dark drama noir superhero film directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. It is the second film in Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy, preceded by Batman Begins and followed by The Dark Knight Rises. It features Christian Bale and Gary Oldman reprises their roles from the first film with Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal joining them playing new characters.
Contents
Plot[edit | edit source]
In Gotham City, the Joker (Heath Ledger) and his accomplices rob a bank used by the local mob as a front for money laundering. Batman (Christian Bale) and Lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) decide to include new district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who is dating Bruce Wayne's childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), in their plan to eradicate the mob. Bruce later meets Dent and offers him a fundraiser after realizing his sincerity. Mob bosses Sal Maroni (Eric Roberts), Gambol (Michael Jai White) and the Chechen (Ritchie Coster) meet to discuss the new pressure on their crime operations. Lau (Ng Chin Han), a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to Hong Kong in an attempt to preempt Gordon's plan to seize their funds and hide from Dent's jurisdiction. The Joker barges into the meeting, warning that Batman will come after Lau, and instead offers to kill Batman for half of the funds. They flatly refuse, and Gambol places a bounty on the Joker's head. Not long after, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his gang.
Batman captures Lau in Hong Kong and delivers him to the Gotham City police; he agrees to testify, allowing Dent and Gordon to arrest the mobsters en masse. In retaliation, the Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham that people will die each day unless Batman reveals his identity, resulting in the deaths of Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb (Colin Mcfarlane) and the judge (Nydia Rodriguez Terracina) presiding over the mob trials. Gordon foils the Joker's assassination attempt on the mayor, apparently dying in the process. As a result, Bruce plans to reveal his identity as Batman, but Dent instead names himself as Batman to protect the truth and is taken into protective custody. Escorted across the city, Dent is pursued by the Joker while Batman rushes to his aid. Gordon, who faked his death to lure the Joker, arrests him with Batman's help and is promoted to Commissioner. However, Dent goes missing and the Joker reveals that both Dent and Rachel have been taken to separate buildings on opposite sides of town which will explode at the same time. Batman goes after Rachel, while Gordon and the police go to rescue Dent. At the same time, the Joker escapes custody with Lau using a smuggled bomb. As the Joker has switched around the hostages' locations, Batman finds Dent and rescues him, even as Dent begs him to save Rachel instead. The buildings explode; Rachel is killed, while half of Dent's face is burned in the explosion, leaving him disfigured.
After killing Lau and the Chechen, the Joker threatens to destroy a hospital if Coleman Reese (Joshua Harto), an accountant at Wayne Enterprises who has deduced Batman's identity, is not dead within an hour. Bruce saves Reese, while the Joker visits Dent in the hospital and convinces him to take revenge against those who played a part in Rachel's death. The Joker blows up the hospital and leaves with a bus full of hostages, while Dent — now calling himself "Two-Face" — confronts and kills Maroni and one of the two corrupt cops who gave him and Rachel to the mob.
That night, as civilians are evacuated from the city, the Joker has two ferries rigged with explosives, offering both civilian and prisoner passenger groups a chance to live if they destroy the other boat. Batman asks his confidant Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) to find the Joker using a signal tracking device that will effectively spy on the entire city; Fox reluctantly agrees, but says he will resign from Wayne Enterprises if the device stays in service after this emergency. Upon discovering the Joker's location, Batman stops Gordon's SWAT teams from taking out the Joker, in order to protect the hostages and to capture the Joker himself. The ferry passengers ultimately refuse to kill one another, and Batman apprehends the Joker, who nevertheless says that he has won "the battle for Gotham's soul"; he reveals what he has done to Dent, stating that the citizens of Gotham will lose their newly-found hope once Dent's rampage becomes public knowledge.
At the remains of the building where Rachel died, Batman finds Dent holding Gordon and his family at gunpoint. Dent judges the fate of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son with three flips of his lucky coin. As the result of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the abdomen and spares himself. As Two-Face flips the coin to determine the boy's fate, Batman (who is wearing body armor) tackles him over the side of the building, killing him. Batman convinces Gordon to hold him publicly responsible for the murders; moments later, the police swarm the building, and a manhunt for Batman ensues. Batman retreats on the Batpod, now a fugitive. Gordon later delivers the eulogy at Dent's funeral and smashes the Bat-Signal, while Fox watches the signal-tracking device self-destruct and Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) destroys a letter written by Rachel revealing her plans to marry Dent.
Cast[edit | edit source]
- Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman
- Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth
- Heath Ledger as The Joker
- Gary Oldman as James Gordon
- Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face
- Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes
- Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox
- Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni
- Chin Han as Lau
- Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb
Production[edit | edit source]
Development[edit | edit source]
Filming[edit | edit source]
Design[edit | edit source]
Effects[edit | edit source]
Music[edit | edit source]
Marketing[edit | edit source]
External links[edit | edit source]
- The Dark Knight at the Internet Movie Database
- The Dark Knight at All Movie Guide
- The Dark Knight at Box Office Mojo
- The Dark Knight at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Dark Knight at Metacritic
- Official site script
References[edit | edit source]
Christopher Nolan |
|
|---|---|
| Director |
Following (1998) • Memento (2000) • Insomnia (2002) • Batman Begins (2005) • The Prestige (2006) • The Dark Knight (2008) • Inception (2010) • The Dark Knight Rises (2012) • Interstellar (2014) • Dunkirk (2017) |
| Producer |
The Prestige (2006) • The Dark Knight (2008) • Inception (2010) • The Dark Knight Rises (2012) • Man of Steel (2013) |
| Writer |
Following (1998) • Memento (2000) • Batman Begins (2005) • The Prestige (2006) • The Dark Knight (2008) • Inception (2010) • The Dark Knight Rises (2012) • Man of Steel (2013) |
