All The Tropes

The Dark Knight (film)/Funny

< The Dark Knight (film)


  • "How about a magic trick? ... I'm gonna make this pencil disappear." It says something about the quality of the movie's writing when such a sadistically violent joke can honestly be hilarious.
    • The way the scene is written out in the screenplay is pretty... cute:

The PENCIL is gone. MAGIC.

  • The Joker is full of edgy humor. Take the part where he facilitates his safe leaving by threatening to blow himself, and a bunch of gangsters up, with grenades.

Joker: Let's not blow... this all out of proportion.
Gambol: You think you can steal from us and just walk away?!
Joker (Matter-of-factly): Yeah.

    • Well of course he's full of edgy humor - that's why they call him the Joker.
  • Same scene, at the end.

The Joker: So listen, why don't you give me a call when you want to start taking things a little more seriously? Here's my card.
He tosses a joker playing card onto the table. The card has blood on it.

  • And in the middle...

The Joker: And the suit? It wasn't cheap. You should know, you bought it.

  • When The Joker sits down next to Harvey's hospital bed, grins and says "Hiii."
  • The Joker's failed attempt at an Unflinching Walk after blowing up the hospital. But the Joker dressed as a nurse, and skipping is already funny enough. It's even funnier when one of the bombs is delayed in exploding, and he stands there hitting the button until it blows up. (the director said the entire scene was Heath Ledger reacting to special effects failing to start)
    • That's only half true. The charges didn't malfunction - on one of the dvd special features it's explained that they were designed to start exploding, pause, and then the "real" explosions would go off, in order for Heath Ledger to leave the hospital as it's exploding. What they didn't do was tell Ledger that there would be a pause.
    • There's also the fact that he makes a "kaboom" sound when he presses the button, complete with sticking his tongue out.
  • The part during the chase scene, when the Bat-Cycle and the Truck play chicken.

Joker: Hah! He missed!
One second later: The steel line tightens, ripping out lampposts and flipping the truck

  • "I just want my phone call".
  • This little exchange:

Bruce: Guess this is the day you get to tell me I told you so.
Alfred: Today, I don't want to. (Beat) But I did bloody tell you. I suppose they'll want to lock me up, too, as your accomplice.
Bruce: Accomplice? I'm going to tell them the whole thing was all your idea.

  • Joker driving the truck, and just going "I like this job...I LIKE it!"
  • For one of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it variety, the Police Department's "Batman suspects" bulletin board at the start of the film. Including Elvis, Bigfoot and Abraham Lincoln. Naturally, this appears right after Gordon proclaims how seriously they're taking the hunt for Batman.
  • The truck's motto: S LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE
  • When the Joker ambushes the convoy, he blocks the road with a fire engine... on fire. Y'know, a pun.
  • What got this troper laughing the hardest was when the Joker pushed the truck driver out of the seat. "Excuse me, I want to drive..."
  • The Joker dangles Rachel out the window in front of Batman: "Let her go!" "Very poor choice of words."
  • Two words: "panic room".
  • Bruce just randomly walking to his ex-girlfriend's current beau and putting him in a sleeper hold. He has a reason, but still.
  • This exchange:

Maroni: Dropping me from this height? It won't even kill me!
Batman: I'm counting on it. (drops him)

  • When Gordon captures the Joker, when he's about to unmask Batman:

Joker: Could you just give me a minute?

  • I was left doubled over laughing at the beginning, when the banker starts shooting at the Joker and his cronies.

Grumpy: He's out (of ammo), right?
Joker: (pauses, then nods assuredly)
Grumpy jumps out, and the banker shoots at him, then runs out of ammo.
Grumpy: (muffled) What the fuck?!
The Joker leaps out of hiding and shoots him.
Grumpy: (pops up, pissed) Where did you learn to count?!

    • "What bus driver?" (bus rams through the wall and kills him)
  • One that didn't involve the Joker:

Two-Face: (flips his coin) You're a lucky man. (flips the coin again) But he's not. (shoots the driver of the car they're traveling in)

  • When Coleman Reese puts 1 and 1 together to realize that his boss, Bruce Wayne, is Batman, and confronts Lucius about it, Lucius's reaction is classic.

Lucius Fox: Let me get this straight: You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.

    • What makes it even better is the "Oh Crap, he's right" look that appears on Reese's face while Fox is talking.
  • The exchange when Alfred finds Bruce stitching up his wounds after his encounter with the Scarecrow and the dogs.

Alfred: Did you get mauled by a tiger?
Bruce: It was a dog.
Alfred: Huh?
Bruce: It was a big dog!

  • "So, which of you fine gentlemen would like to join our team? Oh. There's only one spot open right now, so we're gonna have... [breaks the stick in two] tryouts."
    • This is actually Fridge Brilliance on Joker's part - this way he ensures that the man who wins and joins him is inevitably the more sadistic and desperate one - and therefore more likely to follow his insane orders.
  • After Dent's bust:

Judge Surrilo: ...712 counts of extortion, 849 counts racketeering, 246 counts fraud, 87 counts conspiracy murder, 527 counts obstruction of justice... [looks up at courtroom crammed with giant mob of indictees] ...how do the defendants plead?
Army of defense lawyers: NOT GUILTY!

    • The look the stenographer gives sells the scene.
  • The interrogation scene:

[Batman slams the Joker's head into the table]
Joker: Never start with the head! The victim gets all... fuzzy. He can't feel the next...
[Batman smashes the Joker's hand; Joker pauses for effect]
Joker: You see?

  • The scene in which Batman tries to get Maroni to rat out the Joker.

Batman: Where is he?
Maroni: I don't know where he is, he found us.
Batman: He must have friends.
Maroni: Friends? Have you met this guy?

  • The difference between you and the Batman is that HE'S NOT WEARING HOCKEY PADS!!!!!
    • Crane's briefly-seen "you just got told" glance at the Batman impersonator makes this even more priceless.
    • And just prior to that bit, when Batman tells the impersonator that "I don't need help.":

Crane: (Deadpan) Not my diagnosis.

  • When Batman is preparing to catch a criminal in Hong Kong, Alfred comes up with a good alibi for Bruce: absconding with the entire Russian ballet.
    • The ballet that Harvey was taking Rachel to see, no less. When Batman cockblocks, he goes all the way.

Rachel: Harvey's taking me next week.
Bruce: Oh. (to Harvey) So, you like ballet."

    • "You can tell me the Russian for, "apply your own bloody suntan lotion."
  • Two men are talking about some illegal act.

Standing man: (glances up and sees the bat-signal) No thanks, man. I don't like it tonight. (walks away)
Man in car: What are you, superstitious? You've got more chance of winning the Powerball than running into him!

  • The vegetable peeler in the Joker's collection of knives.
  • During the Hospital scene, there is a moment where Joker can't remember Rachel's name. Dent SCREAMS it at him, and Mr. J jumps in his chair and looks as though Harvey's completely overreacting to this whole murdered-his-fiancée thing.
  • During Joker's interrogation.

Gordon: Where's Dent?
Joker: What's the time?
Gordon: What difference does that make?
Joker: Well, depending on the time, he could be in one place...or several.

  • Joker clapping after Gordon is promoted to commissioner. That was an ad-lib too which makes it even funnier.
  • The start of the movie during the deal with the Scarecrow and the Mafia. The Mafia guys bring dogs to detect Batman and they spot one of the impostors dressing as him. That is, until he pulls out a gun.

Scarecrow: That's not him.
(The real Batman show up in his tumbler)
Scarecrow: That's more like it.

  • Murphy's Law kicking in during the convoy scene when the SWAT member tells Harvey that Joker will need something stronger to stop the armored truck.

Driver: (Seeing what the Joker pulling out) Is..Is that a bazooka?!

    • Most of the driver's reactions to what's happening. It's like if you put a real person into the kind of crap that happens in Gotham on a routine basis.
  • After Joker leaves Harvey's hospital room and right before he blows up the hospital, he stops to apply disinfectant spray from one of those wall-mounted hand pumps ever-so-calmly.
  • This little bit of dialogue between Alfred and Harvey at the fundraiser party:

Harvey: Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should be aware of?
Alfred: Oh, you have no idea.

  • Another at the start during the Mafia/Scarecrow scene when the Batmobie busts in. The thugs shoot at it and stop when they get no response. It shifts inside to show its on automatic with the setting on "Loiter" after a minute it switches to "Intimidate" and opens fire on the thugs. Just the way its set up along with the timing is hilarious.
  • After Harvey Dent has experienced Batman's trademark Stealth Hi Bye routine for the first time:

Gordon: (shrugging) He does that.

  • The Joker to Harvey (who had half his face burned off and lost Rachel): "You were a schemer. You had plans. And uh, look where that got ya." (Harvey attacks The Joker)
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_(film)/Funny?oldid=1937669"