The Dark Knight (film): Difference between revisions

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A year after the events of ''[[Batman Begins]]'', Batman and his allies -- Police Lieutenant James Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent -- achieve real success in taking down Gotham's organized crime when they start hitting them where it hurts: their money. The various mob leaders become so afraid of Batman that when [[The Joker|a scarred psychopath]] [[Monster Clown|in clown makeup]] shows up and offers to make their problems go away by killing Batman, they hire him... but once backed by the mob, he decides that rubbing out Batman isn't good enough. The Joker aims to destroy Gotham City from the inside out, and part of his "plan" involves attempts to corrupt the city's heroes -- Batman and Harvey Dent -- by making their lives hell until they snap...

''The Dark Knight'' has the distinct honor of being the first comic book film to win an acting [[Academy Award]], as the late Heath Ledger won the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance as The Joker.

 

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* [[The Ace]]: Harvey Dent. {{spoiler|[[Broken Ace|At first.]]}} Rifftrax said it best after he punches a witness who pulls a gun on him, unloads the gun, states the model and manufacturer before placing the weapon in front of the man who wanted him dead, essentially tells him to try harder next time, and then says he's not finished with the witness:

** There's also how quickly and shamelessly Joker murders his own henchmen, but he's probably not as likely to suffer consequences for doing so. It also should be noted that the Bank manager, who himself is implied to be a member of the mafia, [[Even Evil Has Standards|disapproved of and lamented the course its taken]].

* [[Combat Sadomasochist]]: The Joker loves to inflict pain and suffering, but also seems to like being at the receiving end, particularly in the scene where he is beaten up by Batman and in the (in)famous "come on, hit me" episode.

* [[Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames]]: {{spoiler|The name "Two-Face" is only uttered once, when Harvey remembers that cops used to call him "Harvey Two-Face" when he worked for internal affairs}}.

* [[Comically Missing the Point]]: Done intentionally by Lucius Fox.

** Ramirez was apparently forced to kidnap Rachel Dawes due to her needing funding for her mother's hospital bills.

* [[From Nobody to Nightmare]]: The Joker. See [[Not So Harmless]] below.

* [[Gatling Good]]: Bruce Wayne conducts a ballistics test using Gatling guns. Since they only fire ''a single round at a time'' there is absolutely no reason to have them other than [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]] -- which [[Justified Trope|entirely fit his persona]].

* [[Generic Ethnic Crime Gang]]: Besides [[The Mafia]], Gotham has a black mafia (led by Gambol) and a Chechen [[The Mafiya|mafiya]] (led by, well, The Chechen). They seem to have [[Villain Team-Up|reconciled their differences]] in order to [[Enemy Mine|stop Batman from ruining their business]].

* [[Genre Shift]]: ''The Dark Knight'' has much more in common with crime dramas and [[Thriller|thrillers]] than with straight-up superhero films, and it abandons the elements of adventure and mysticism that ''[[Batman Begins]]'' used heavily.

* [[Get Into Jail Free]]: The Joker does this in order to kidnap Lau to make him reveal where the mobsters' money is.

* [[Glasgow Grin]]: [[The Joker]].

* [[Godzilla Threshold]]: this is essentially what [[The Joker]] is for this version of Gotham's criminal underworld, unfortunately for everyone involved, no one was quite prepared it. Alfred summarily lampshades:

* [[Scheherazade Gambit]]: Variant when {{spoiler|[[The Joker]] is captured by the police. Using only his words, he manipulates a police officer into attacking him, then takes the officer hostage.}}

* [[Screams Like a Little Girl]]: Salvatore Maroni as he's dropped from the second floor by Batman.

* [[Should Have Thought of That Before X]]:

{{quote|'''Maroni''': This madness... it's just too much.

* [[The Unfettered]]: The Joker.

* [[Unflinching Walk]]: {{spoiler|Lucius Fox}}.

* [[Unhand Them, Villain!]]: The Joker does this to Rachel when Batman tells him to let her go. She happens to be hanging halfway out a window.

{{quote|'''Joker''': Very poor choice of words!}}

* [[The Windy City]]: The film was shot on location in Chicago with many of the city's distinctive streets making an appearance.

* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: Two-Face knocked Anna Ramirez into unconsciousness, after his coin spares her life.

* [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]: Batman has to play an ''insane'' game in the film's final minutes. {{spoiler|[[Disguised Hostage Gambit]] with multiple SWAT teams bursting in all over the place. Batman has to quickly incapacitate SWAT teams so they don't kill the Hostages-disguised-as-Joker-thugs, and take out the real Joker thugs at the same time. There are also police Snipers targetting the disguised hostages. He ends up having to use his grapple hook in creative ways to knock over hostages to get them out of line of site while at the same time getting to floors he needs to be on, blow the floor up beneath swat teams and thugs with his bomb launcher, and use the SWAT teams' own grapple ropes to tie them together and then suspend them over the side of the building.}} All this thought up and implemented on the fly within a time span of two minutes.

* [[X Must Not Win]]: Where X in this case refers to [[The Joker]]. It's such a major driving force for the good guys, especially for Batman, that at the end of the movie, {{spoiler|Batman takes the fall for Dent's murders partly out of refusal to give Joker the satisfaction of wrecking Gotham.}}

 

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