District Attorney Harvey Dent and
Lieutenant James Gordon
Mob bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol, and the Chechen hold a video conference with their corrupt accountant, Lau, who has taken their funds for safekeeping and fled to Hong Kong. The Joker interrupts the meeting to warn them that Batman is unhindered by the law, and offers to kill him in exchange for half of their money. The mob bosses disagree, and Gambol places a bounty on the Joker. The Joker finds and kills Gambol, taking over his gang. The mob decides to take the Joker up on his offer.
Batman finds Lau in Hong Kong and brings him back to Gotham to testify, allowing Dent to apprehend the entire mob. The Joker threatens to kill people unless Batman reveals his identity, and starts by murdering Police Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb and the judge presiding over the mob trial. The Joker also tries to kill Mayor Anthony Garcia, but Gordon sacrifices himself to stop the assassination. Dent kidnaps one of Joker's henchmen and threatens him with a seemingly deadly game of heads or tails until Batman intervenes, warning Dent that all the criminals he has convicted would be released if anyone found out. Dent learns that Rachel is Joker's next target.
Bruce decides to reveal his secret identity to prevent more deaths. Before he can, however, Dent falsely announces that he is Batman to lure the Joker out. Dent is taken into protective custody, but the Joker appears and attacks the convoy. Batman comes to Dent's rescue and Gordon, who faked his death, apprehends the Joker, securing a promotion to Commissioner. Rachel and Dent are escorted away by detectives on Maroni's payroll; Gordon later learns that they never arrived home. Batman interrogates the Joker, who reveals that they have been trapped in separate locations rigged with explosives and that Batman must choose one to save. Batman races to save Rachel, while Gordon attempts to rescue Dent. Batman arrives at the building, but realizes that the Joker has sent him to Dent's location instead. Both buildings explode, killing Rachel and disfiguring Dent. The Joker escapes with Lau, who leads him to the Mob's funds. The Joker burns his share of the money and kills Lau and the Chechen.
Coleman Reese, an accountant at Wayne Enterprises, deduces that Bruce is Batman and threatens to publicize the information. Not wanting Reese's revelation to interfere with his plans, the Joker threatens to destroy a hospital unless Reese is killed within an hour. All hospitals are evacuated and Gordon travels to secure Reese. The Joker, disguised as a hospital nurse, discovers Dent's ward and hands him a gun, convincing him to seek revenge for Rachel's death. The Joker destroys the hospital and escapes with a busload of hostages. Dent goes on a killing spree, deciding the fates of people he holds responsible for Rachel's death by flipping his lucky coin, one face of which was corroded in the explosion. Dent eventually apprehends Gordon's family, believing Gordon's love for his family parallels his love for Rachel.
After announcing that Gotham City will be subject to his rule by nightfall, the Joker rigs two evacuating ferries with explosives; one carrying civilians and the other prisoners. The passengers have been supplied with a trigger to the other boat's explosives, and the Joker announces through an intercom that he will blow both ferries if one of them has not been destroyed by midnight. Batman finds the Joker by using a sonar device that spies on the entire city, with the reluctant help of Lucius Fox. The civilians and the prisoners refuse to kill each other, while Batman apprehends the Joker after a fight. Before the police arrive to take the Joker into custody, he gloats that Gotham's citizens will lose hope once Dent's rampage becomes public knowledge.
Gordon and Batman arrive at the building where Rachel died and find Dent threatening to kill Gordon's family. Dent again flips his coin and shoots Batman, spares himself, and aims to kill Gordon's son, claiming that Gordon's negligence is responsible for Rachel's death. Batman, who was wearing body armor, tackles Dent off the building to his death. Batman persuades Gordon to let him take responsibility for the killing spree to preserve Dent's heroic image. As the police launch a manhunt for Batman, Gordon destroys the Bat-signal, Fox watches as the sonar device self-destructs, and Alfred burns a letter from Rachel saying she plans to marry Dent.
Cast[edit]
Cast and crew of The Dark Knight at the European premiere in London. From left to right: Director Christopher Nolan, producers Emma Thomas and Charles Roven, actors Monique Gabriela Curnen, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Christian Bale.
Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman:
A billionaire socialite who, after witnessing his parents' death in a mugging at age 8, travels the world for seven years before returning home to operate as a bat-masked vigilante hailed as Gotham City's "Dark Knight", using fear against the city's criminal underworld 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, who supplies useful advice to Bruce and likeness as a father figure, leading him to be labeled "Batman's batman".[19][20]
Heath Ledger as The Joker:
A psychopathic illegalist mastermind portraying himself as an "agent of chaos", who rises from the criminal underworld by thrusting Gotham into anarchy and drawing Batman ever closer to crossing the fine line between heroism and vigilantism. Before Ledger was cast 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 unsuccessfully approaching Ledger for the role of Batman in Batman Begins) 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 zero empathy".[28] In the film, the Joker has a Glasgow smile, and his trademark chalk-white skin and red lips are makeup rather than the result of chemical bleaching, as in the traditional portrayal of the character. 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 and Sid 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 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, "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:
The district attorney hailed as Gotham's "White Knight", whose campaign against the criminal underworld leaves half of his face disfigured, turning him into a 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 Ruffalo auditioned.[46] Matt Damon stated that he was considered for the role, but could not accept due to scheduling conflicts.[47] 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".[48] 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 Dent 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 criminal persona "jokey with slurping sounds or ticks".[49]
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes:
Gotham City's assistant district attorney and Bruce's childhood friend, who is one of the few people who knows Batman's true 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,[50] but she eventually turned it down to film Mad Money with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah.[51] By March 2007, Gyllenhaal was in "final talks" for the part.[52] 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.[53]
